A Pirate's Life
by Elspeth1
Summary: Will, trying to do a favor for Jack, unwittingly places himself in a vengeful Norrington's line of fire, and Elizabeth realizes that she may lose both of the men she loves.
1. In Which the Golden Dolphin is Attacked

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DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Disney. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. Hopefully, Disney's many experienced lawyers will not decide to come after me for this, as I posses only a Gateway computer, some black eyeliner, and a stack of library books by Patrick O'Brien.

****

Posted by: Elspeth (AKA Elspethdixon).

****

Author's Notes: To my eternal shame, I have only seen this movie once, so if you find any mistakes, inconsistencies, or inaccuracies in characterization, please tell me.

****

Ships: Will/Elizabeth, Jack/Elizabeth, eventual Jack/Will, eventual Norrington/OC

****

Warning: This story contains killing, stealing, lots of angst, an OC, and a non-evil Norrington. It also contains drinking, swearing, a male/male relationship, and an eventual threesome. Sadly, it will not contain any hot, steamy sex scenes.

****

Chapter One: In Which the Golden Dolphin is Attacked on the High Seas.

__

Oh a sailor's life is a weary life  
For he robs the girls of their delight  
Causes them to weep, causes them to mourn  
Loss of a true love, never to return

The _Golden Dolphin_ had been a week away from docking in Port Royal when one of the sailors manning the topsails had spotted the other ship on the horizon, upwind of the little merchant vessel and closing the distance between them with an unnerving speed. The captain had ordered every shred of sail raised, until Mary Rose, standing nervously on deck near the entrance to the captain's staterooms could fairly hear the ship groaning with the strain. 

All efforts to out race the other ship proved futile, and as the hours wore on she crept ever closer, like a lean, hungry wolf shadowing a lone deer. Watching those white sails and the black hull beneath them approach, Mary Rose found herself wishing fervently that she and Robert had delayed their departure another month, so that they might have sailed to the West Indies on a naval vessel, with an armed escort, instead of the inoffensive little _Dolphin_. Robert's uncle had warned them that piracy was rampant in these waters. Why, why hadn't they heeded him? Why had they rushed ahead, taken the earliest departing ship, regardless of its armament or strength?

"Robert," she asked her husband softly, as the captain shouted out orders to his crew, "that's a pirate ship, isn't it? Are we going to surrender?"

Of course not, darling." Despite of the strain of the moment, he still managed to summon up a smile for her. "We'll fight her. She'll not find us easy prey, whatever her villainous crew thinks. Captain Harding's got two eight pound carronades hidden on the lower deck, just waiting to open up on her when she gets close. And there's the nine pounders on deck as well."

Mary Rose nodded, pretending reassurance, but though she knew little enough about guns, she still suspected that whatever pieces of armament the pirate ship carried threw shot a lot heavier than any of the _Dolphin_'s guns, hidden or not. As she stared towards the sinister-looking ship, a puff of smoke suddenly blossomed against the black hull, followed moments later by a shattering boom. A fountain of water exploded up from the sea mere yards away from their ship, the wash from the impact rocking her back and forth.

"They've got our range now!" one of the sailors yelled, while another, a grizzled fellow with the look of an old hand about him, stared back at the pursuing ship with horror on his face.

"I know them guns," he whispered. "God have mercy, it's the _Black Pearl_."

"Shut yer yap, old man," the master's mate snarled. "The _Pearl_'s a myth. I'll not be having that sort of talk."

"She is, sir, so she is. Crewed by the damned, and captained by a man so evil Hell itself spit him back out." The sailor's eyes were wide ad white about the edges, and the men around him had begun muttering uneasily.

"Faster than any ship afloat…"

"They say her crew eat human flesh."

"… never takes prisoners."

"Silence!" the master's mate thundered. "If she's the _Black Pearl_, then why are her sails white? The _Pearl_ has black sails; everyone knows that. There'll be no more of this talk."

Scarcely had he finished speaking when the entire side of the pirate ship opened fire in one long, rolling burst. She had come about while they spoke, making ready to fire, and the force of her broadside slammed into the _Golden Dolphin_, snapping spars and splintering the boards of the hull. Mary Rose screamed.

"Get her below," the captain snapped. "All women below!" he repeated. "Male passengers can stay on deck. You'll be issued cutlasses, if you want them."

The _Dolphin_'s own guns opened up in answer to the pirate ship's broadside, sending a hail of smaller but still lethal shot toward her. A few balls fell short, and others whistled harmlessly through her rigging, but others found their mark. Still, she looked distressingly unaffected.

"Mary," Robert told her sharply, "go below. Get my pistols out of the chest and bring them here."

Mary Rose obeyed, glad beyond measure to leave that smoky, crowded deck, filled with the whistle of roundshot and the thick stink of gunpowder. As she reached the entrance to the lower deck, the enemy ship let loose another broadside, and heavy balls connected by short lengths of chain scythed into the Dolphin's rigging, leaving destruction in their wake. 

Mary Rose ran along the corridor as fast as the strictures of her corset and gown and the violent lurching of the ship would allow. She half fell into their stateroom, bruising her hip against the corner of the bed, and fumbled desperately with the lock on Robert's chest, finally getting it open after what seemed an age to reveal his neatly folded coats and shirts, packed away back in England for after the long voyage. She yanked clothing out desperately, flinging it aside to lie in heaps on the floor, until she reached the leather case at the bottom of the chest, inside of which lay two pistols, manufactured especially for Robert by a firm in London.

As she made her way topside again, something struck the _Dolphin_ a violent blow, causing the entire ship to shudder. Stunned and half-deafened, Mary Rose picked herself up off the floor and stumbled on deck into a scene from a nightmare.

The pirate ship lay directly along side them, shouting men with a variety of brutal-looking weapons in hand swarming over the side toward the Dolphin. They raced across plank laid atop the deck rails, and one man took a running start and leaped, black braids and faded red scarf streaming out behind him.

All around her was the sound of gunfire and the jarring clash of metal on metal. Mary Rose thrust the pistol case into Robert's hand and shrank back against the side of the forecastle, more terrified than she'd been in her entire life.

The deck shuddered as the gun crews below opened up with their little carronades, and the other ship lurched away slightly with the force of the impact. One of the boarding planks fell into the sea, the man atop it leaping desperately toward the _Dolphin_. The man who had jumped leaned out and caught him by the wrists, pulling him aboard, then laughed and slapped him on the back, before turning to charge the nearest gun crew, sword flashing silver in the sun. Moments later, it flashed red.

Robert fumbled with the pistols, loading them with hurried fingers, cursing under his breath. Over his words floated the screams of dying men, as the pirates cut their way through the _Golden Dolphin_'s crew.

Pistol finally loaded, Robert lifted it, cocked it, and fired, straight at the pirate who'd so nearly fallen into the sea moments ago. The young man staggered back, a bright crimson splotch of blood appearing high on the right side of his chest. His face was a dark as the slaves Mary Rose had seen in the Bermudas, and it twisted as she watched into a grimace of pain.

The sound of the shot was still ringing in her ears when one of the other pirates turned and executed a single perfect lunge, beating Robert's borrowed cutlass aside as thought it were a feather and running him through front to back. 

Mary Rose screamed as she saw the tip of the sword emerge from between Robert's shoulder blades. Her husband fell heavily to his knees, and the pirate planted one foot on his chest to tug the blade free. Robert convulsed, blood spilling out of his mouth to stain the lace beneath his chin, and collapsed to the deck, his blue eyes going blank and dull. Mary Rose screamed and kept on screaming.

Around her, the _Dolphin_'s remaining crew members were putting up their cutlasses, surrendering to the victorious pirates as the _Dolphin_'s Union Jack was lowered slowly from its place at the masthead. It seemed to float through the air as Mary watched, snapping and twisting in the eerie silence that had replaced the noise of battle. 

The black-haired pirate who had stabbed Robert had his back to her now, bending over his fallen comrade. The dark-skinned pirate was making soft moaning noises through his clenched teeth, left hand pressed tight against spreading bloody stain at his collar.

"On your feet, love. Come on," her husband's killer urged the wounded man. "You can thank me later." Mary Rose felt a wild urge to grab those wild, beaded black locks and yank them as hard as she could. How dare he slaughter Robert and then ignore him like a, a swatted fly!

Robert! Mary Rose knelt down beside her fallen husband, warm blood seeping up through her skirt and petticoats. His chest was still beneath the bloodstained fabric of his waistcoat, and his blue eyes stared unblinking up at the hot tropical sun. 

"You killed him!" she hissed, glaring venomously at the oblivious pirate. "Murderer!"

The man swung around to face her again, taking two swaying steps forward to where Robert lay against the wall of the forecastle. "I'd never have done it had he not picked up that pistol, m'Lady," he said, voice slurring and lilting over the words. So that was how pirates spoke, Mary Rose thought, with that little part of her mind that wasn't wailing in horror, like half-drunk actors proclaiming Shakespeare. "Those passengers as don't fight gets left alone. Now, be a brave lass and lets be havin' that jewelry." He gestured at her throat with the pistol, waving it expansively.

Mary Rose watched, hypnotized, as those deadly hands fluttered gracefully. The pistol grasped in one of them was cocked, ready to shoot. She was going to die there, shot by this horrible, murderous man, and the last thing she would see would be those mad, wild black eyes laughing at her as the gun went off. Mutely, she undid the clasp of her necklace with trembling hands, and slid the gold and pearl drops from her ears, placing them in one grimy, callused brown hand. 

"An' the ring too, love." Another gesture. 

Mary Rose closed her left hand into a fist around the gold ring, pulling her hand back against her chest. It was too much. It was all too much. "That's my wedding ring," she told him, voice shaking. "It was Robert's mother's. Robert gave it to me, he…" she blinked hard as tears welled up in her eyes. She would not cry in front of this monster. She would not. "Robert…"

The pirate took one lurching step back from her, still eyeing the ring. Something else had replaced the greed in those glittering dark eyes. "Keep it then, lass." He touched her hand lightly, almost caressing the tightly balled fingers. "Somethin' to remember me by."

Mary Rose looked up into those black-circled eyes and knew that she wouldn't need her wedding ring to remember this day. She would never forget, never. Not as long as her love for Robert and hatred for his killers still lived within her heart. "Curse you," she whispered. "Curse you, you black hearted bastard. Take your jewels and choke on them. Leave me in peace."

He turned away then, leaving her again to return to the dark-skinned pirate Robert had shot, whom he pulled upright and handed into the arms of a grizzled, heavyset man. The wounded pirate was a woman, Mary Rose realized, with a queer sense of shock. She found that she didn't much care. She hoped the unnatural creature died. She had lost her husband. Let the pirate who had murdered him lose his lover.

The rest of the pirates were looting the _Golden Dolphin_'s hold, carrying chests, barrels, and bales of English wool and linen back to their ship. The _Dolphin_'s captain was watching them, face torn with an anguish that looked more inspired by the scene in front of him than by the blood that dripped from his slashed sleeve.

"You should have struck your colors sooner, mate," the black-haired pirate told him, clapping him on the uninjured shoulder in an almost sympathetic manner. "Would have saved a lot of bloodshed." He shook his head. "You can always count on an honest man to be stupid." He doffed his hat at the man, bending forward in a graceful bow. "On behalf o' my crew, I thank you for the fine merchandise. We'll leave you to go about your business."

And they left. Just like that, they left.

Mary Rose took little note of their going, or of the slow movements of the Dolphin's remaining sailors clearing wreckage from the deck. There was a lot of it to clear, starting with the fallen mass of the mainmast, snapped off halfway up its length by the pirate ship's second broadside.

She bent over Robert's motionless body, absently brushing back the strands of brown hair that had fallen into his face. She looked up as a hand rested on her shoulder, to see the bloodstain visage of the captain looking down at her with pity.

"We'd only been married a year," she told him, eyes filling. "We were going to Jamaica to start a sugar plantation. His uncle is the governor there. We were going… We were…" her words trailed off into silence, and Mary Rose Swann lowered her face into the bloodstained silk and linen of her husband's waistcoat and wept.

^_~

Annamaria lay stretched out on the table of the captain's cabin, the bloody wound on her shoulder illuminated by two small oil lamps, which cast dancing, swaying shadows over the scene as they swung from the beams above. Gibbs, his bearded face creased with concentration, carefully sponged the blood off her dusky skin, revealing the wound beneath. She moaned softly as the rag made contact with her torn flesh, turning her head away.

Captain Jack Sparrow, watching the procedure from the corner of the room, took another swallow of rum from the bottle in his hand. He'd bitten the inside of his cheek when he had jumped across from the Pearl to the little merchantman, and the alcohol stung the inside of his mouth, burning fiercely in the cuts. He didn't care. Some things were worth a little pain.

Annamaria moaned again, as Gibbs laid bare the wound high on her chest. The bullet had glanced off her collarbone, snapping it in two, and the cleanly broken ends of bone were visible, glinting white in the warm light of the oil lamps.

Jack closed his eyes against a brief surge of dizziness, then opened them again to look suspiciously at the bottle in his hand. Still almost full. "You'll still be beautiful," he told Annamaria, as her dark eyes fixed on his. "Scars give a woman character."

"Bugger character," she gasped. "That's my sword arm. Holy _God_, Gibbs…"

Gibbs had placed his fingers on her shoulder and was slowly drawing the broken ends of her collarbone straight again. Annamaria screamed and passed out, and Jack looked away. He was not going to be sick. He was Captain Jack Sparrow, and the great Captain Jack Sparrow did not throw up over a little blood.

He drank another swallow of the rum, imagining that he could feel it's soothing warmth replacing the hollow ache in tired muscles, left empty now that the sparkling fire of adrenaline was draining away. It's her own fault she's injured, the rum told him comfortingly. None of it's on you. He drank some more and told it to shut up. Silently, of course. It wouldn't do to distract Gibbs.

"Where's-" Gibbs turned and caught sight of his captain. "Oh. Give me that." He reached out and Jack handed the still mostly full bottle of rum to him. He wet another rag in it and began dabbing Annamaria's shoulder again. She didn't moan this time. Her head was motionless against the wooden table, and her eyes were shut. "This ought to heal, I think," he added. "Most like we should put her arm in a sling once it's bandaged."

"Linen," Jack suggested. "Plenty of that to go around after today." He stood, reclaiming the rum bottle from Gibbs and placing a hand on the edge of the cabin's open door. "We're makin' for Port Royal."

Gibbs blinked. "Port Royal." It wasn't quite a question.

"Got to get those two guns fixed, and I know a blacksmith as will do it for cheap."

The merchantman's little carronades had done small good against the _Pearl_, but they had managed to pretty well mangle two of her guns, as well as a pair of the pirates manning them. The crew would draw lots over their belongings and share of the take tonight.

Jack went on deck, smiling an assurance at Hopkins when he asked anxiously after Annamaria. The deck planks rolled comfortingly beneath his feet as he made his way to the wheel, laying one hand along the top of it as he checked his compass, more out of habit than anything else. The needle pointed helpfully toward the _Pearl_'s mainmast.

"Coming about three points," he yelled at Cotton and the other members of the watch. "Get up there and make sail."

The Pearl's boom swung regally across the deck as her tack changed, and Jack ducked absentmindedly. Three days to Jamaica, if this wind kept up, and then they could lie to on the east side of the island and send one of the ship's boats about to Port Royal. 

There would be a blacksmith with a soft spot for pirates waiting there, and convincing him to get to work on the _Pearl_'s guns shouldn't be too difficult. He might even be able to con the lad into doing it for free. The great Captain Jack Sparrow could be very persuasive.

"We'll set you to rights again, sweetheart," he murmured, stroking the edge of the wheel again. Will was probably every bit as good with cannon as he was with swords, though he probably didn't work on them so obsessively now that he had taken Jack's advice and gotten himself a girl. If he did, he was an idiot. Elizabeth Swann was much shapelier than even the most well-forged blade. Anyway, he was probably good with cannon too, and he'd have the two guns fixed in no time.

"Port Royal, and then Tortuga and a nice careening to clean your bottom, hm? You'd like that, wouldn't you, love?"

The _Black Pearl_ picked up speed slightly, running before the wind, agreeing that yes, she would like that very much indeed.

"I knew you would. Now fly for me, sweetheart. Fly us home."

^_~

I can hear the objections flying into my inbox now. Hey, pirates aren't always nice people, even semi-decent extraordinarily sexy pirates. I promise, Jack will redeem himself. Eventually. 

Next up, chapter two: _In Which Elizabeth Obtains a New Pair of Earrings._

Stay tuned for less bloodshed and more flirting.


	2. In Which Elizabeth Receives a New Pair o...

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DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Disney. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. Hopefully, Disney's many experienced lawyers will not decide to come after me for this, as I posses only a Gateway computer, some black eyeliner, and a stack of library books by Patrick O'Brien.

****

Posted by: Elspeth (AKA Elspethdixon).

****

Author's Notes: To my eternal shame, I have only seen this movie once, so if you find any mistakes, inconsistencies, or inaccuracies in characterization, please tell me. Also, as per Teleute's suggestion, nautical terms and the like will now be glossed at the end of each chapter.

****

Ships: Will/Elizabeth, Jack/Elizabeth, eventual Jack/Will, eventual Norrington/OC

****

Warning: This story contains killing, stealing, lots of angst, an OC, and a non-evil Norrington. It also contains drinking, swearing, a male/male relationship, and an eventual threesome. Sadly, it probably will not contain any hot, steamy sex scenes.

Chapter Two:In Which Elizabeth Obtains a New Pair of Earrings.

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Well met, well met, my own true love,

well met, well met cried he.

I've just returned from the salt, salt sea

all for the love of thee.

The sun had nearly set, and the sky inland was a wash of rose and pale lavender, like the inside of a seashell. Elizabeth Turner, however, was not looking at the remnants of the splendid Caribbean sunset--she was staring in the opposite direction, away from the gentle curve of Kingston harbor, and out to the open sea. Twilight was darkening the horizon there to a velvety blue, and a rising moon was beginning to shine faintly, creating a pale silver trail across the water. The sandy expanse of the Palisadoes Split stretched off to her left, pale in the evening light, but she was careful not to look in that direction. That way lay Gallows Point, and its rather gruesome first hand demonstrations of justice, and Elizabeth had seen just about all the pirate skeletons she ever wanted to, thank you very much, though at least these simply hung quietly in their chains instead of walking around.

The sea stretched away before her, wide and empty save for that single moonlit path. As the sky darkened, and the moon began to shine more brightly, the path became more solid-looking, until it appeared a silver road stretching away to the horizon. A magical road to lead her away from Port Royal and out into the open sea, or into some fairy kingdom that could only be reached by moonlight.

Presumably, young women in fairy kingdoms did not have to wear corsets and fancifully upswept hairstyles, and listen politely at dinner to red-faced older men who went on and on about the proper management of cane plantations. 

Will, displaying a devious turn of mind that probably would have made his pirate father proud, had claimed a (non-existent) pressing engagement and begged off. Elizabeth, sadly, did not have that luxury--the governor's daughter was expected to participate in the social life of upper-class Jamaica, regardless of whether or not her husband fulfilled his own social duties. 

Still, she _had_ managed to convince her father's coachmen that really, she could _walk_ the short distance back from the Jacobsons' manor to the governor's house, neglecting to mention her planned little detour. After that endless dinner, she had desperately needed the fresh air.

Sand was doing its best to sift inside her embroidered slippers, the soft breeze blowing out to sea had disarrayed her carefully arranged hair, and Will was almost certainly waiting for her back home, but Elizabeth stayed and watched the water.

There had been a school of dolphins fishing offshore when she had first arrived, jumping playfully in and out of the waves. They were gone now, and the strand was empty but for herself and her imagination.

The whistling was so faint that for a moment she thought she had imagined it, drifting to her on the warm land breeze like a song whistled by a ghost. It sounded familiar. Oddly familiar…

_We're rascals, scoundrels, villains, and knaves_, her brain supplied automatically. _We're devils and black sheep and really bad eggs. Drink up, me hearties, yo ho_.

"Yo ho, yo ho," she sang aloud, voice soft, but strong enough to carry to where ever the whistler was, "a pirate's life for me."

"Good song, isn't it?"

The voice spoke directly into her ear, causing her to spin around wildly, yanking the little dagger Will had made her from its hiding place in the front of her bodice and brandishing it in front of her.

"Oooh, do that again." Dark eyes smiled charmingly at her, flicking from her bodice to the dagger in her hand and back again. They were not a pair of eyes she had expected to see again. Hoped to see again, certainly, but not expected.

"Sneaky freebooter," she accused, sliding the dagger back into place. "Don't creep up on me like that. I might have stabbed you."

Jack grinned and spread his arms wide, as if inviting her to do her worst. "Such a welcome for an old friend. I'll make a pirate out of you yet." He looked much the same as he had the last time she'd seen him--same faded blue waistcoat, same red scarf around his head, same magpie-like assortment of beads and gee-gaws tied and braided into his hair. The same dark lines drawn around his eyes in kohl, more make-up than most women would dare wear. She might have thought that the thick, dark outlines made his eyes look like the eyes of a skull in the dim moonlight, had she not previously seen what his eyes really looked like set into a skull. His feet were bare, the better to sneak up on unsuspecting young women.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded. The words came out sounding almost accusing, so she quickly added an explanatory, "If you get caught…"

He grinned, and she caught the quick glint of gold teeth. "Nobody catches Captain Jack Sparrow."

"Which, of course, is why I've seen you in chains more often than any other man of my acquaintance." 

"You've led a very sheltered life, haven't you?"

She folded her arms and attempted to glare sternly at him. She had a feeling she wasn't too successful at it. It is difficult to glare at a man you haven't seen in seven months or heard from in seven months, particularly one whose life you saved the last time you saw him. Seven months. Seven months without the slightest missal to let her and Will know that he was alive, that he hadn't gone down in one of the winter hurricanes or even drowned in the sea after falling off that rampart. Suddenly, it was much easier to glare.

"But I always get away, don't I?" A wider grin, and a dramatic flourish of ringed fingers. 

"Yes." She felt herself smiling slightly, unwillingly. "You do, don't you? Even if you have to bribe rumrunners with God knows what to do it."

"Better than burnin' perfectly good rum. You're just lucky that ship showed up, or we'd have died of thirst. No water, and you had to go and burn all the rum."

Elizabeth decided to ignore this comment. Responding to it would only encourage him. "So, again, what are you doing here?"

With a graceful but slightly unsteady bow and a wave of his arm, Jack produced a small object wrapped in a scrap of water stained silk and held it out to her. ""Your weddin' present, my lady. Unless the lad _hasn't_ married you yet, in which case he really is a eunuch."

There were some things, Elizabeth decided, that she didn't really need to inquire about. That comment was one of them. Gingerly, she took the little scrap of silk, cautiously unfolding it and holding it up to the light. The unmistakable gleam of gold shone forth from her palm, and she gasped in delight as she saw the two small eardrops nestled there, white pearls shining opalescently in the moonlight and delicately filigreed gold settings glittering.

"Oh, Jack, they're beautiful." Her eyes narrowed in sudden suspicion. "Where did you get them? Never mind," she added, cutting him off before he could reply, "I don't want to know. I'd only feel guilty if I did."

"You prob'ly _don't_ want to know," he agreed. "I'll just put them in for you, then?"

And before Elizabeth could protest, the earrings were out of her palm and back in Jack's hands.

He grasped her chin in one hand and turned her head gently to one side, then released her and reached up to carefully thread the wire loop of the earring through her earlobe. His face was inches away from hers as he squinted at her ear, and she could feel the warmth of his breath against her neck. The last time they'd been so close together, they'd been sitting before a fire with a bottle of rum, discussing freedom. The last time before that, he'd had a cutlass at her throat.

The earing slid easily into her ear, with none of the painful pokes that usually occurred when someone else tried to put earrings in for her.

Jack leaned around to her other side to work on the second ear, fingers trailing across her throat. He had callused hands, like Will, and the rough skin brushing against hers tickled slightly.

The second ear was done as easily as the first, and Jack stepped back to look at her, somehow managing to avoid catching any of his rings in her hair as he pulled his hands away.

"Beautiful," he said, looking at her with those startlingly out-lined eyes, and for a moment she was unsure whether he was referring to the jewelry or her. "They suit you, even if they are the wrong color."

Of course he had meant the earrings, she chided herself. They were made of gold. Jack was very fond of gold. "Black pearls are much more difficult to find," she answered, guessing what he meant. 

The opportunity for a terrible pun or self-aggrandizing comment was there, but he let it lie.

"What are you _really_ doing here?" Elizabeth asked again. There had to be more reason for his daring the town's garrison than a simple pair of earrings, no matter how lovely they were. Earrings could be sent in a parcel.

"Mrs. Turner, you wound me." Jack clutched a hand to his heart, staggering back a step as if dealt a mortal blow.

"No, but I could if you'd like." She gestured toward the hidden dagger, feeling herself grin.

"And if I'd like-"

"Stop it," she interrupted, seeing where his eyes were aimed and trying not to giggle. "I'm married!"

"Well yes, there's that. Normally, you understand, it wouldn't be a problem, but as your husband's a pirate also…"

"He's a blacksmith," she corrected automatically.

"Yes. Pr'cisely. Which means he can fix cannons, right?"

"Will can fix anything," Elizabeth replied staunchly. She blinked. Somehow the topic of conversation had shifted from earrings, to her virtue, to cannons, all in the space of about sixty seconds. She had forgotten how irritating talking to Jack could be. His conversation was really much easier to follow when you were drunk.

"Anything including cannons?"

"Yes, anything including cannons. Why?"

"Because two of the _Pearl'_s guns have got rather mangled." He shrugged. "I did have another reason for coming, like you so sagaciously said. I was hoping Will could fix them for us."

"He might. You would have to ask him. Wait, you'd better not. I can't bring you back to my father's house, and if I bring Will out here, people are going to wonder why we're going trooping out to the beach in the dark."

"They'll prob'ly just think that you're havin' a romantic moment out here together."

"Will and I do not have 'romantic moments' out of doors in the sand."

"Why not?" Jack looked genuinely puzzled.

"Because someone might come along and _see_ us," she said, shuddering slightly at the very idea. Port Royal was a small place, and _someone_ might even turn out to be her father. Or Commander Norrington. And then she would die of mortification. And this was really none of Jack's business anyway. 

"Tell him to meet us down at the south end of the docks at midnight, if he's comin'," Jack said. "We've got a boat moored there, with the customs officials bribed to look the other way."

Elizabeth nodded. "And if he does go?" she asked. 

"Then we row back to the _Pearl_, sail to Tortuga, and he fixes the guns there," Jack explained. "And we sail back to drop him off here within the month."

A month. Elizabeth would have loved to go to sea for a month. Just a simple, quiet sea voyage, minus the mélees and curses and walking skeletons. A chance to get away from Port Royal for a bit and have some fun. She couldn't, of course. Not by herself, on a pirate ship. The Governor's daughter traveled on secure Royal Navy vessels, suitably escorted, and anyway, she and Will couldn't both disappear at the same time. He had gone away to neighboring settlements to do an odd job or two several times before, but a sudden and unexplained absence on her part would cause comment. Comment by Commander Norrington, for one, who had kept a sharp eye on herself and Will in the wake of their last minute rescue of Jack from the hangman's noose.

"I'll tell him for you," she said. She turned to go, then hesitated. "Thank you for the earrings. They really are lovely, wherever you got them." She reached up to finger one. "They're a shallow bribe to get me to give up my husband to you for a month without complaint, aren't they?"

Jack laughed. "Maybe. That and you're the only woman I can safely give gifts to without gettin' me face slapped."

"Undeservedly, I'm sure." Elizabeth smiled to modify the light sarcasm in her tone. "Will will either be at the harbor, or he'll not be. It's up to him. Either way, please don't take seven months to turn up again next time." She shifted her feet slightly. "I have to get back before he and my father really start to worry. Good bye."

"Good bye, love."

That might have been the first time the two of them had bid an official farewell to each other, Elizabeth reflected as she walked away. She glanced back over her shoulder once, but Jack disappeared into some hiding place as if he'd never been there at all, leaving only the jewels in her ears and the prints of bare feet in the sand to mark his presence.

When she arrived at home, Will and her father both rushed to the door to meet her.

"Elizabeth," Will said gladly, reaching out to take her hand, "where have you been? The Governor's been back for ages."

"Walking by the water," she told him, giving his fingers a silent squeeze. Will nodded slightly, understanding. He spent a lot of time down by the water himself, since their seagoing adventure. A taste for the sea seemed to be like a taste for strong rum; once it got its hooks into you, it hung on like a demon and never let go.

"Really, Lizzie," her father scolded. "Walking about alone in the dark. You could have been set upon by ruffians or pirates."

With an effort, Elizabeth managed to keep a straight face. "I know," she apologized. "I'm sorry for making you worry." She feigned a yawn. "All this walking must have made me more tired than I realized," she continued. "I believe I shall retire."

Her father sighed, then smiled. "Of course, my dear."

Will, who was not fooled by the bit of subterfuge, looked her questioningly. She inclined her head slightly toward the stairs.

"Good evening, Governor Swann," Will said politely, with a slight bow. He then pulled Elizabeth gently in the direction of the stairs, their hands still joined.

"What is it?" he whispered, as soon as they were out of immediate earshot. Elizabeth closed the door to their rooms before responding. As she did so, she felt his eyes on her neck.

"You weren't wearing those earbobs when you left, were you?" he asked. "I don't think I've seen them before." 

"A little bird gave them to me."

He blinked, looking puzzled for a moment, and then light dawned. "So that's why you twitched when your father mentioned pirates. What the devil is Jack doing here?" Will had begun to grin faintly, even as he made the demand.

"He needs someone to fix two of the Black Pearl's guns, and came in search of a blacksmith."

"Just like that? After seven months?" Will sounded aggrieved. "Hello, Will and Elizabeth, how are you doing? Sorry I haven't written. Could you come and do a favor for me?"

"Ah, yes. That was pretty much how it went." She smiled. Will looked cute when he was aggravated. That little line would appear between his eyebrows, and his chin would set determinedly, as it was doing now.

"I suppose he wants me to do it for free, as well?"

"He probably does, yes."

"Well I won't." Will folded his arms across his chest, and added, "I expect to be well paid in ill-gotten Spanish coin for my labors." Then he seemed to realize that he had essentially just agreed to fix the two guns. The two of them had assumed that his going was a foregone conclusion immediately, Elizabeth realized. She had assumed that he would agree to go the moment Jack had asked her, and Jack himself had seemed pretty certain of it as well. The three of them knew each other too well, especially considering that Jack and Will had spent little more than a week in each other's company.

"I'd probably have to go out to the Black Pearl to do it," Will ventured. "She'd have to put into harbor somewhere, and she can't do that here."

"Jack said he'd meet you down at the docks at midnight, and you would sneak off to the Black Pearl in a boat and sail for Tortuga." Elizabeth felt slightly envious at the idea of Will's once again visiting Tortuga, which she had never seen. "He said it would take about a month in all." She reached up to place a hand along side Will's face. "I shall miss you, until you return."

"You really wouldn't mind my going?" Will asked uncertainly, reaching up to capture her hand. "It just, it doesn't seem fair to you, Elizabeth, leaving you here all by yourself while I go off and have fun."

"I only wish I could go too," she told him. "And not just because I'll miss you." She sighed. "I spent the whole of dinner commiserating with Mr. Morrison about the difficulty of holding on to good slaves in this climate. Apparently, his keep dying off of something or running away, which I personally don't blame them for. And tomorrow I am engaged to meet with Mrs. Morrison and Mrs. Jacobson and her daughter over tea and embroidery, which wouldn't be so bad, save that Julia Jacobson has set her cap for Commander Norrington, and glares daggers at me over the cream pitcher."

"Poor Elizabeth," Will teased. He turned her hand over and planted a kiss on her palm, right over the faint, pink line of the scar Barbossa's knife had left. "Forced to suffer indigestion and curdled cream."

"That and she resents that I'm an unladylike hoyden who married beneath her, but yet can still sew smaller stitches than she can," Elizabeth continued. Will's mustache tickled the skin of her palm unmercifully, and her fingers twitched. "Stop it. That tickles."

Will looked back up at her face earnestly, not relinquishing her hand. He absently drew a callused thumb across the raised surface of the scar, which still tickled, but not as much. "I don't know what I managed to do to deserve you. Every morning, I wake up and I'm surprised all over again to find you next to me."

"You saved my life like a hero from a story, of course," Elizabeth said. "I only fall in love with men who rescue me. That's where Norrington went wrong."

"His loss is my gain." Will pulled her closer to him, and reached up to catch one of the little pearl earrings, inspecting it. "These are surprisingly tasteful for Jack. I thought his taste in jewelry ran more toward 'giant and shiny.'" He smiled teasingly. "But you can't go to sleep in them, pretty as they are."

Elizabeth smiled back, turning her head to one side slightly to present him with a better angle. "Perhaps you could take them off for me?"

Will didn't answer. Instead, he reached up to take hold of the delicate little gold wire with his surprisingly clever blacksmith's fingers. It took two tries, but after a moment he was able to get it free. He leaned in closer, blowing softly on her now naked ear and giving her earlobe a little nip with his teeth. Elizabeth shivered.

Will moved lower, kissing the curve of her neck, then came about behind her to reach her other ear, trailing his fingers across her throat just as Jack had earlier. He leaned in so close to her that the ends of his hair tickled her cheek and neck, and began to work on the second earring. This one came out more quickly, and was followed by another nip and kiss. Will was even better at taking out earring than Jack was at putting them in.

"Jack will be waiting for you down at the docks," Elizabeth reminded him, thought at the moment she was interested neither in the docks nor Jack.

"Let him wait a bit longer," Will breathed against her shoulder. "I'm not leaving you alone for a month without saying a proper good-bye first."

^_~

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Palisadoes Split: a long stretch of joined cays and sandbars connecting Port Royal to mainland Jamaica.

****

Gallows Point: site near Port Royal where pirates were traditionally hanged. After being hanged, they were frequently displayed hanging in chains until they rotted as a warning to other would be pirates.

Next up, chapter three: _In Which Mary Rose Relates her Tragic Story, and Norrington is Greatly Moved. _

There will be tears, noble vows of vengeance, and a memorial service for poor dead Robert-Swann-the-plot-device.


	3. In Which Mary Rose Relates her Tragic St...

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DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Disney. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. Hopefully, Disney's many experienced lawyers will not decide to come after me for this, as I posses only a Gateway computer, some black eyeliner, and a stack of library books on sailing ships and the navy.

****

Posted by: Elspeth (AKA Elspethdixon).

****

Author's Notes: To my eternal shame, I have only seen this movie once, so if you find any mistakes, inconsistencies, or inaccuracies in characterization, please tell me. Also, as per Teleute's suggestion, nautical terms and the like will now be glossed at the end of each chapter.

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Ships: Will/Elizabeth, Jack/Elizabeth, eventual Jack/Will, eventual Norrington/OC

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Warning: This story contains killing, stealing, lots of angst, an OC, and a non-evil Norrington. It also contains drinking, swearing, a male/male relationship, and an eventual threesome. Sadly, it probably will not contain any hot, steamy sex scenes.

****

Chapter Three: In Which Mary Rose Relates her Tragic Story, and Norrington is Greatly Moved. 

__

They'd not been gone but about two weeks,

I'm sure it was not three,

when that fair maiden, she began to weep.

She wept most bitterly.

Why do you weep, my own true love?

Weep for your golden store?

Or do you weep for your house carpenter?

You're never gonna see him anymore.

When the green mass that was the island of Jamaica finally appeared on the horizon, Mary Rose very nearly wept with relief. The _Golden Dolphin_, undermanned and half crippled, had been limping slowly through the Caribbean waters for nearly three weeks, while the eyes of all aboard her constantly searched the surrounding sea for more pirates. Now the battered little brigantine was finally within sight of port, the sails on her foremast and jury-rigged mainmast filling with the wind that would bring her to shore. It was over. This Godforsaken voyage was finally over. She did not know what awaited her in Port Royal, or what she would do now that Robert was dead, but at least she would be safe.

It took a long time to bring the _Dolphin_ into port, short-handed as she was, and by the time the ship was moored and the gangplank laid, Mary Rose was beyond ready to disembark. Two of the sailors were kind enough to carry her chest--which the pirates had left untouched, not being much interested in women's clothing--to the dock, and she was sitting upon it tiredly, wondering how she ought to go about contacting Robert's uncle with news of her arrival, when the naval officer approached.

He stood on the dock for a moment, surveying the wreckage of the _Golden Dolphin_ with a hard, angry look on his face. Around him, the ship's surviving crew members went about the business of unloading what remnants of cargo they still had. Apparently electing not to interrupt their work, he turned to her.

"What happened here?" he asked, in a polite voice at odds with his angry bearing.

"We were attacked," Mary Rose said dully. Could the man not see that? 

"By pirates, I presume." It was not a question.

"Yes." She provided an answer even though one did not seem to be required. "By, by pirates." She could hear her voice tremble slightly over the word, and tried desperately to get a hold on herself. She could not break down and cry here on the dock, in front of a total stranger. "They took everything, even my jewelry. Everything except my wedding ring." She blinked hard several times, forcing back tears. "And, and my husband… He tried to fight them, and one of them stabbed him with a sword."

The officer's expression shifted to something gentler, sympathy, or something like it, seeping into those sharp eyes. "My condolences, Mrs…" he left the sentence hanging, waiting for her to supply the proper name.

"Swann. Mary Rose Swann. My… Robert and I were coming here to start a sugar plantation. His uncle lives here."

"Governor Swann," the officer nodded. "I know him. If you will wait until I have spoken to the ship's captain, I can provide you with an escort to his residence."

"That would be most kind of you, sir," she said.

"Commodore," he corrected gently. "Commodore Norrington." He sighed, looking unhappy. "I hate to dredge up unpleasant memories, but can you remember anything specific about the pirate ship that attacked you? Anything at all?"

"The ship had white sails," she told him, shifting her gaze downward from his stern, square-jawed face to where her hands lay folded in her lap. "I know, all ships have white sails, but some of the sailors seemed to think that important. That they were white and not black. It had more than one mast. I can't remember exactly how many. I'm sorry."

"It's all right," he reassured her. "You've been very helpful," he added, though Mary Rose was fairly certain that she had not been helpful. The details of the pirate ship were hazy in her mind, consisting mainly of a lot of confused memories of smoke and canonfire. There were other memories, however, that were not hazy at all.

"Wait," she said, forestalling him before he could turn away. "I don't remember the ship but, the pirate, the one who, who… murdered Robert. I remember him." She looked back up into Commodore Norrington's face, remembering another face, almost more pretty than handsome, with wild hair and crazy, kohl-lined eyes. "He had black hair, with, with beads and things in it. And paint around his eyes. And he killed Robert." She blinked again, but in spite of her efforts, a few tears escaped. "I think he might have been their captain."

Commodore Norrington had stiffened when she mentioned the beaded hair, and now his eyes hardened again, blazing with a contained anger that Mary Rose was very glad not to find directed at her.

"Sparrow," he growled softly, his right hand closing seemingly without his knowledge around the hilt of his sword. "I might have guessed." His grip on the sword hilt tightened until his knuckles showed white, and he glanced down at his hand almost in surprise, releasing the weapon. "I assure you, Mistress Swann, I will do everything in my power to bring to justice the scum that murdered your husband. You have my word."

Slightly startled by the force of his statement, Mary Rose stared at him for a moment, before gathering her wits to phrase an answer. "Th-thank you, Commodore. I, I would appreciate that greatly." She was almost shocked at herself to realize that her words were completely true. Never before in her life had Mary Rose wished another person harm, but the thought of her husband's killer dangling at the end of this angry Commodore's rope was very satisfying indeed.

^_~

"I am the resurrection and the life, sayeth the Lord," Father Williams intoned solemnly. "He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live…"

Beside Elizabeth in the pew, her cousin's wife wept into a handkerchief, small, quiet sobs that somehow managed to sound genteel despite the obvious grief behind them. 

Elizabeth's own eyes were dry. She felt as if she should be crying; after all Robert had been her cousin. Still, it was difficult to feel any real grief over the death of someone she hadn't seen in over ten years. Her only memories of Robert were hazy recollections of an adolescent boy, seemingly vastly taller than her, who had once mocked her for having freckles. His death simply didn't seem real, because "Cousin Robert" himself had not seemed quite real in her mind.

Mary Rose, however, was most definitely real, and so was her grief, and the sight of her trying manfully—womanfully?—to suppress her tears finally brought a few tears of sympathy to Elizabeth's own eyes. The poor woman had been through so much, crossing the ocean only to be stranded in a strange land without her husband. She had not even been able to bury him properly, there being time for only a quick prayer and a hastily murmured "we commit his body to the deep," before the _Dolphin_ had had to sail on, hence the memorial service now.

Elizabeth and her father had not asked Mary Rose about Robert's death, accepting her brief declaration that he had been slain trying to fight off a pirate attack without pressing her for further details. Governor Swann had his own memories of Captain Barbossa's crew and their attacks on Port Royal and the navy vessel he and Norrington had sailed out to search for Elizabeth in. Elizabeth had similar memories, and could very well imagine the sorrow she would feel if she were to somehow lose Will. Neither wanted to exacerbate the recent widow's grief.

After all, Elizabeth told herself, when the periodic need to check her curiosity about the _Golden Dolphin_'s attackers arose, God alone knew what the poor woman had suffered. Not all pirates were as comparatively civilized as Jack.

Thoughts of Jack led inevitably to thoughts of Will, and she wondered what her husband was doing at the moment. Was he already in Tortuga, fixing the _Black Pearl_'s damaged cannon, or still sailing, heading out to sea on Jack's ship with the wind in his hair and the salt spray in his face?

Either way, she wanted to be with him. She would willingly have traded every stilted conversation with the memorial service's other attendees, all offering formal and nigh identical condolences to the Swanns and Mary Rose in particular, for five minutes with Jack and Will, the deck of the _Pearl_ heaving beneath her feet or the sand of a beach sifting between her toes. 

"I'm sure Mr. Turner will return to Port Royal directly," Mary Rose ventured, as the pair of them exited the church, Governor Swann following behind them.

"What?" Elizabeth turned to face her, halting momentarily in startlement.

"Your husband," Mary Rose repeated. "I'm sure he will return shortly." She offered up a tremulous smile for Elizabeth before turning to Commodore Norrington to accept his bow and proffered sympathies. "Thank you, sir. You are most kind."

Elizabeth felt a momentary stab of guilt. Will would indeed be back in a few weeks. Robert would never be back. She ought to be the one comforting Mary Rose, not the other way round.

"I am not so much sorrowful," she confessed, as the two women were handed up into the Governor's carriage by Norrington—who gave Elizabeth a lingering glance as he assisted her—"as I am jealous that he may go sailing around the colonies while I must stay ashore." She smiled ruefully. "Ships really _are_ freedom." Then she recalled that, given her recent experiences, ships were probably the last thing Mary Rose wanted to talk about. "Do you do embroidery?" she asked, quashing the little voice in her head that wailed at the idea of practicing any more of the stuff. "I'm sure there are some spare frames at home, and I'd be happy to sit on the veranda and sew with you, or take tea."

"Some tea would be lovely," Mary Rose replied softly, staring down at her hands before looking back up at Elizabeth. "I am afraid I do not feel up to embroidery today."

Of course she doesn't, Elizabeth scolded herself. She's just spent all morning crying. She doesn't want to squint at a needle now.

"Of course you don't," Elizabeth assured her. "It was silly of me to suggest it."

She was trying to think of some further comment to make, something that would involve neither ships nor embroidery, when she noticed Mary Rose gazing intently at her, eyes fixed on her ears. Involuntarily, she raised a hand to her head to see if one of her earrings was missing. To her relief, both little pearls were still there.

"Those…" Mary Rose hesitated. "Those earrings. Where did you get them?" She looked pale suddenly, as if she had seen a ghost.

"These?" Elizabeth reached to touch one earring again, the memory of the last time she had worn them flashing unbidden to her mind. The recollection of hands in her hair and callused fingers gliding across her throat nearly made her blush. "They were a wedding gift from a friend. A joke of sorts; pearls to remember him by. He said I looked beautiful in them." Or had that been Will? Two sets of brown eyes gazed at her in memory, one tender and one laughing, both laden with different sorts of promise.

Mary Rose had gone, if anything, even paler, face so white beneath her ash blonde hair that she looked as if she were fading into the coach's champagne-colored cushions. 

"Are you all right?" she asked, reaching to place one hand on the other woman's wrist.

Mary Rose pulled her wrist away slightly, the movement almost a flinch. "Yes. Yes, I'm fine. Who did you say gave you those earrings?"

With a sudden, cold feeling in the pit of her stomach, Elizabeth lowered her hand back to her side. "No one," she said, mouth opening in an instinctive attempt to conceal, to protect. "A friend of my husband's. Why?"

"Oh, it does not matter." Mary Rose turned away, directing her attention out the small window set in the coach's side. "It's merely that, for a moment, they looked almost familiar. I imagine your friend must have bought them in London."

"Yes," Elizabeth heard herself saying, "I think he might have." Which was untrue, of course. Jack had been round the Horn once, a voyage he said had cost him two teeth to scurvy and any desire to venture that particular route to the Pacific again, but he had never been to London, or to anywhere in England at all.

^_~

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Brigantine: A two-masted merchant ship.

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The Horn: Cape Horn, the southernmost tip of South America. In the days before the Panama Canal was dug, sailors had to sail around it to get from the East coast of the New World to the West coast. It was essentially the sailing voyage from Hell, which is why the Panama Canal was eventually built. You could also get to the Pacific by crossing the Atlantic, rounding the Cape (of Good Hope) and then crossing the Indian Ocean.

Interesting tidbit: Norrington is shown wearing a British Naval uniform in the movie, however, Britain didn't officially adopt any sort of uniform for her Navy until the 1740s, several decades after the movie's supposed to take place. I've decided to go along with this, inaccurate or not.

Next up: _Chapter Four, In Which Much Drinking Occurs, but Nothing is Resolved._

The angst and woe will be abandoned briefly in favor of vaguely slashy humor as we catch up on what Jack and Will have been doing.


	4. In Which there is Much Drinking, but Not...

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DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Disney. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. Hopefully, Disney's many experienced lawyers will not decide to come after me for this, as I posses only a computer, some black eyeliner, and a world atlas with colour maps of the Caribbean.

****

Posted by: Elspeth (AKA Elspethdixon).

****

Author's Notes: As before, I've only seen the movie once, so if you find any mistakes, inconsistencies, or inaccuracies in characterization, please tell me. 

****

Ships: Will/Elizabeth, Jack/Elizabeth, eventual Jack/Will, eventual Norrington/OC

****

Warning: This story contains killing, stealing, lots of angst, an OC, and a non-evil Norrington. It also contains drinking, swearing, a male/male relationship, and an eventual threesome. Sadly, it probably will not contain any hot, steamy sex scenes.

Chapter Four: In Which Much Drinking Occurs, but Nothing is Resolved.

__

I could have married the King's daughter dear.

She would have married me.

I've forsaken her crowns of gold

all for the love of thee.

Tortuga had not changed much in the seven months since he'd last been there, Will concluded, as he gazed around the smoky, crowded confines of the dockside tavern. He suspected it was the same one he and Jack had met with Gibbs in, back the previous summer, but he couldn't be sure. After you had been in a couple, all of the taverns in Tortuga began to look alike. Certainly all of their proprietors knew Jack—which was why Will found himself, as Jack's companion, obliged to pay for all of his liquor up front.

He didn't have much of a problem with that at the moment, as small beer was pretty much the least expensive thing the Sea Cow offered. 

"You might as well drink water," Jack opined, flicking his fingers disdainfully in the direction of Will's tankard.

"I would," Will confessed, "If I weren't afraid of catching something. Do you have any idea how hot it is inside a forge when the bellows are going? It's like the hinges of Hell."

"I'm sure we all appreciate your skill and fortitude. When are the guns goin' to be done?"

"Tomorrow."

"You said that yesterday," Jack protested, sounding aggrieved. His voice was at odds with his body language—he half-sat half-lay sprawled across a chair by the wall, eyes half-lidded as watched the rest of the tap-room. Will was fairly sure he was putting on the injured tone fore effect.

"That was before McTaggart and Hopkins let the fire in the forge go out." He frowned, thinking of the hours of wasted work. The _Pearl_'s two twelve-pounders had been a surprisingly easy job, really, but for the set back with the forge. It had required a moderate amount of skill, but nothing like the sort that was needed to create a good blade. This job had needed a craftsman—for the other, it took an artist. 

He toyed, once again, with the idea of making a sword for Jack—not a cutlass, but a true, double-edged blade, straight and slender and gaudy as an island sunset, just like its owner. He had made a dagger for Elizabeth that winter, as slim, delicate, and deadly as she could be, but had created nothing for Jack. He'd never been sure whether or not he was going to see Jack again, and didn't like the thought of a sword made for him ending up in the hands of some naval officer when its true owner never arrived to claim it, so the weapon had gone unmade.

"I ought to charge extra for the added time," he continued, perching on the edge of the table and doing his best to cast a stern look at its single occupant.

"And you keep calling _me_ a pirate," Jack muttered, just loudly enough to be clearly audible. He waved a hand at the seat next to him, left empty while Anamaria recuperated slowly back onboard the _Pearl_. "Sit down, o most expensive blacksmith this side of the Antilles, and have a real drink. I'll stand you the first one."

Will obeyed, with far less reluctance than he would have once shown at the idea of sitting down to drink with a pirate. He had grown halfway comfortable sitting with Jack during that handful of days on the Interceptor, listening almost against his will to a seemingly endless ramble of disjointed and unlikely stories or occasionally, enjoying a blessed and rare silence. The trip out from Port Royal this time had seen few of those moments, with the two of them surrounded by the _Pearl_'s crew. In some senses, it was a blessing—prolonged doses of pure, unadulterated Jack tended to grate upon one's nerves fairly quickly—and in some ways, it had been almost an annoyance. Will had been waiting for several days for the chance to catch Jack alone, to talk without someone, even if it was only Cotton's parrot, listening nearby.

The two of them had had an audience practically from the first moment Will had stepped aboard the little ship's boat back in Port Royal, to receive a slap on the back from Jack and a half sly, half-shy inquiry as to whether Elizabeth had liked her earrings. Will, his mind going back to his departure minutes before, had, much to his horror, blushed bright red.

"I do believe you're blushing," Jack had said, grinning evilly. "Ah, young love, isn't it adorable?" And then he had smirked, as if Will were a small dog who had just performed a clever trick, and as if he were pondering how to induce him to perform that same trick again. 

"I am not," Will had insisted, trying to save face. He went on the attack. "A man could get ideas from a fellow giving jewelry to his wife."

"Oh, sorry. Jealous, are you? Did you want earrings too?" The concept of receiving his own set of earrings had never occurred to Will before that moment. It was disturbingly tempting. Elizabeth would have probably liked them.

"No!" he'd burst out, continuing with a babbled, "I mean, I can't wear earrings. I'm a respectable blacksmith. And if you think I'm letting you anywhere near my ears with a needle you're insane. Er. Insaner." 

And the pirates standing by with the oars had laughed heartily and decided that Will and Jack were better than the theater, and that both Will's successful sallies and his embarrassed stumbles were the best entertainment they'd had in weeks. And every exchange since had been closely observed.

The phrase "You'll never guess what the lad said to the captain today…" had become the bane of Will's existence. Jack didn't seem to care. Jack was, he was sure, somehow encouraging it, simply to be annoying.

He was also the only annoyance to whom Will could even try to explain the problem that had been bothering him for weeks. No one back in Jamaica, with the exception of Elizabeth, would have understood, and confiding in Elizabeth would have made her feel guilty.

"I just can't talk to any of them," he found himself confessing, after a couple of rounds of rum. "They go all cold-eyed and look at me, like 'and who are you, you young upstart, aping your betters.' Elizabeth belongs in that sort of world, but I don't. I don't know how to manage a plantation, or make dinner conversation with a lord's son, or play the pianoforte. I just know swords. I make them, and I use them, except I can't use them against the Governor's friends even though it is all right for a gentleman to fence, because they don't like always losing."

"Gentry." Jack snorted. "All a title like "Lord" does is weigh a man down with useless land. Who wants a plantation? 'Captain,' now. 'Captain's a title a man earns."

"I don't want a plantation. All I want is a forge and a blade and Elizabeth. And freedom."

"I told you you were a pirate. Once the sea gets in your blood there's no gettin' it out. A ship like the Pearl, that's real freedom, you savvy? Go wherever you want, as far as you want, and never obey anybody except the wind."

That sounded far more appealing than Will really wanted to admit. "I can't drag Elizabeth around on board some ship," he protested. "She'd never complain, but her father, her home, everything she's ever know almost is in Port Royal." 

"You're sure you'd never want to leave her for the ocean, for a ship?" Jack sounded almost surprised, as if the idea of a wife being more important than a ship, of a family outweighing one's personal freedom, was something that had never occurred to him before. "I've never met anyone worth givin' up the _Pearl _for. The best thing would be somebody to share her with me. Like a _menage à trois_." He grinned. "That's French, like parlay, only more fun."

Will could guess very well what it was. It made a very interesting mental picture, especially with the _Black Pearl_ thrown into the equation. "I wouldn't think it would be much fun for the two women, though." He could feel himself blushing again as soon as he'd said it, appalled at himself. This was definitely the last round of rum.

"Don't know." Jack shrugged. "I've never heard complaints."

"These," Will announced, "are not the sort of details I need to hear."

"You're blushin' again," Jack pointed out, one hand gesturing broadly at Will's face. "You never used to blush this much, mate. Married life has made you go all shy."

"_You_ never used to mention sex to me unless you were trying to insult me," Will accused in turn.

"You can't even say it." Jack was shaking with suppressed laughter now, looking perilously close to snorting rum out through his nose, which would have been extremely painful. And fully deserved. "You blush just tryin' to. You're worse than a woman. Really. Because a lot of women aren't shy at all."

"A gentleman doesn't kiss and tell," Will said, somewhat stiffly. What was wrong with him? He had blushed more in the past two weeks than he had in the whole past half year before them.

"We're neither of us gentleman, love." Jack smirked at him, slumping further down into his chair in a manner that somehow made him look as if all of his bones had melted. "I think you're just jealous that I got to spend the night with your Elizabeth before you did."

Will knew full well that Jack was only joking, but his mind flashed involuntarily to an image of the other man and Elizabeth, salt-coarsened black elf-locks tangling with sleek golden-brown silk, and dark skin sliding against pale. Strangely, this image didn't prompt jealousy or resentment, as the thought of Elizabeth with Norrington would have. Instead, Will felt an unaccountable stirring of arousal, and his face began to heat and color again.

Trying furiously to distract his mind, he countered, "Elizabeth told me all about that. She drank you under the table."

"She did nothing of the sort,' Jack protested. "There wasn't a table on the island. Trust me, I've spent more time there than I want to remember." He squinted at Will. "Have you got a sunburn?"

"I thought we were talking about freedom," Will said, trying to bring the conversation about to its original tack.

"We were. You're the one who went and brought up sex." Jack poured himself another glass of rum and extended the bottle toward Will. He waved it away. Already his head was swimming with the liquor he'd consumed, its effects compounded by his tiredness and the heat of the room.

"You sure the lass wouldn't mind leavin' Port Royal?" Jack asked. "When I caught up to her to her those earrings she was on the beach starin' at the sea like a stavin' man lookin' at a banquet table. I had expected to find you there," he added, "not her."

"No." Will shook his head. "When I start missing it, I go and make a new sword."

"How many swords have you made?" Dark eyes regarded Will levelly, the mirth of a few moments ago draining away like a tide pulling away from the beach.

"A few," Will admitted. Jack nodded slightly, understanding that 'a few' really meant 'dozens.' The little smithy in Port Royal was just as crowded with blades as it had ever been, but now a different sort of frustration was pounded out into the glowing metal. Into this rapier blade had gone his memories of slat breeze in his face and a rope in his hands; into that carefully wrought basket hilt went the glitter of a cavern full of treasure; and into every finely honed edge went the delicious adrenaline-laced thrill of combat and danger. The sort of wild plans and impossible risks that seemed to go hand in hand with Jack's company had chilled his blood at the time, but now, life without them seemed somehow flat, lacking in something vital. He sighed.

"Norrington offered me a commission as a midshipman when I first got back. He said that if I could learn to curb my recklessness, I could have a fine future in the navy. I think he may have just been trying to get me away from Elizabeth. I said no, of course, but sometimes I wish…" He let himself trail off. Then, as now, accepting a commission would have meant abandoning Elizabeth. Elizabeth, who had said several times that his presence was all that made life in Port Royal bearable, and who was herself one of the only things that kept Will from taking the first ship bound for Tortuga or Bridgetown.

Jack eyed him speculatively. "You'd have made a good naval officer," he sadi, words slightly more slurred than usual. He had been drinking two rounds to Will's one most of the evening. "You're honorable and brave and loyal and all of those good things I'm not. Norrington's a good sailor; he knows how to pick 'em, savvy?" He toasted Will with a mostly empty tankard. "Mr. Will Turner of His Majesty's Navy." He knocked back the remainder of the tankard's contents in one long swallow and set the empty vessel down on the scarred wooden table with a bang. "Be a waste, though," he added, "spendin' your life all tied down by navy discipline, jumpin' only when another man tells you to. You deserve better'n that."

"You really think I'd have been good at it?" Will asked, somewhat surprised. Captain Jack Sparrow, who could seemingly steer a ship on instinct and talk his way out of almost any scrape at the last moment, thought that he, Will Turner the blacksmith, the overly-honest 'whelp' who was forever doing stupid things, had the makings of a sailor?

"You learn fast, you do what needs to be done, an' I'd take you at my back in a fight over a half-dozen other men." Jack clapped one be-ringed hand on Will's shoulder, nearly unbalancing him. "Norrington should have grabbed you for a first mate and Elizabeth for a wife when he had the chance." Brown, dark-outlined eyes stared into Will's, pupils slightly dilated. "I would've, if I'd thought of it. I swear, mate, when you two stepped between me an' those swords… You could have asked for anythin', an' I'd have given it to you. Well," he temporized, "anythin' except the _Pearl_."

Will looked away, shaking his head. Something about that intent gaze made him feel almost embarrassed. "It wasn't that important," he muttered. "You would have done it for us."

"It's nice of you to say so," Jack told him. He grinned, gold teeth glinting in the lantern-light. "The _Pearl_ would be proud to have you aboard her, both of you. I owe you one, and I do pay my debts occasionally."

Will did not answer. He didn't trust himself to refuse. "We should get back to the ship," he said instead, "before it gets too late. _I've_ got work to do tomorrow."

Jack didn't press for a real answer. He let Will haul him to his feet and the two of them made their way out to the door and back down to the docks. Jack, one hand on Will's arm to provide him with the necessary balance--"cursed land, always stayin' still when you expect it to move"--hummed that pirate song Elizabeth was so fond of as they walked, occasionally singing a snatch of it aloud. By the time they reached the gangplank of the _Pearl_, Will had succumbed to the evil infectiousness of it and joined in.

^_~

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Antilles: The largest group of islands in the West Indies, extending from Cuba to Trinidad.

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Elf-locks: Snarled and tangled hair, not hair that is elven-looking (considering Orlando Bloom's last role, I thought I should make that clear).

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Bridgetown: A seaport in Barbados, known as a haven for privateers and smugglers in the seventeenth century.

Next up: _Chapter Five, In Which Elizabeth and Norrington Quarrel._

Stay tuned as we leave Will and Jack for a while in order to fit in some angst and plot development.


	5. In Which Norrington and Elizabeth Quarre...

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DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Disney. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. Hopefully, Disney's many experienced lawyers will hopefully not decide to come after me for this, as I posses only a computer, some black eyeliner, and a world atlas with colour maps of the Caribbean.

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Posted by: Elspeth (AKA Elspethdixon).

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Author's Notes: As before, I've only seen the movie once, so if you find any mistakes, inconsistencies, or inaccuracies in characterization, please tell me. 

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Ships:Will/Elizabeth, Jack/Elizabeth, eventual Jack/Will, eventual Norrington/OC

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Warning: This story contains killing, stealing, lots of angst, an OC, and a non-evil Norrington. Sadly, it probably will not contain any hot, steamy sex scenes.

Chapter Five: In Which Norrington and Elizabeth Quarrel.

__

I have a fair true love on the ocean,

for seven long years he's been at sea.

And if he's gone for seven more, sir, 

no other man shall marry me.

Elizabeth sat alone on the bed she shared with Will, staring silently at the two small objects she held in the palm of her left hand. The pearls shone faintly rose-coloured in the light of the setting sun, and as she shifted her hand out of the beam of sunlight slanting in through the window, their settings flashed red gold. Such pretty things to bear such an unwanted message.

_Where did you get them? Never mind, I don't want to know. I'd only feel guilty if I did._

_You prob'ly _don't_ want to know._

Jack's words from two weeks ago echoed in her head as she contemplated the ill-starred jewelry. She really shouldn't be so surprised to find that her new earrings were stolen. She had known all along that Jack couldn't possibly have obtained them legally. She just hadn't expected…

Hadn't expected to find that he had stolen them from her cousin's wife after killing her cousin? Of course she hadn't thought of that! It was too ridiculous, too far-fetched, like something out of a badly written play.

Except that now she was holding the evidence in her hand.

She had known that Jack was a pirate. She had known, far better than most young woman her age, what that meant, that killing people must inevitably be part of the package. She had seen Jack kill before. Granted, the victim had been a sinister, undead pirate captain who minutes before had been on the verge of killing Will, but Jack had still caused him to go from undead to permanently dead. So why did this new revelation bother her so much? Aside from the obvious fact that Robert had been someone known to her, that is.

Elizabeth rolled her pearl earrings--Mary Rose's pearl earrings--around in her palm and remembered gentle hands sliding them into her ears, remembered dancing clumsily but exuberantly around a driftwood fire singing her pirate song while another voice provided a slightly off key but extremely enthusiastic counterpoint, remembered brown eyes smiling into hers while their owner curled the ends of his mustache and leered at her, remembered white bone gleaming in the moonlight, flesh rotting away and then knitting together again as the spectre wielded a sword with a grace she had never seen from anyone else but Will. Remembered shackled hands taking her by the throat and the cold barrel of a pistol pressing against her head.

Will's voice drifted almost mockingly into her thoughts.

_He's a pirate, and a good man._

Who had made Mary Rose cry silently in a church pew while the priest recited prayers for the soul of her husband. Who had saved Elizabeth's life at least twice. Who was probably at this very moment sailing back from Tortuga with her husband on board his ship.

Perhaps Jack had had a reason for killing Robert. Perhaps Robert had been fighting with the ship's crew, had raised a sword or pistol against Jack, had compelled him to shoot him, or stab him, or whatever it was he had done. Or perhaps he had not. Elizabeth very much wanted to believe the former, but reason whispered treasonously that the latter was equally likely. And added that both English law and family feeling ought to compel her to take her knowledge of Jack's whereabouts, limited as it was, to Norrington or one of his subordinates.

Except that where they found Jack, they would find Will

^_~

Commodore Edward Norrington hesitated outside the door to the Governor's house, knuckles hovering a bare inch from its painted surface. Once a frequent and welcome visitor, he now felt awkward whenever he set foot inside the graceful building. Governor Swann was as gracious as ever, but lurking deep within Norrington's mind was the knowledge that somewhere upstairs was the apartment shared by Elizabeth and Will, by his former fiancée and the man she had left him for.

This time, however, he was not making a social call. Today, he was here on official business.

Mrs. Swann had been most adamant that the earrings Elizabeth had worn this morning were the same pieces of jewelry that Sparrow had stolen from her. Two pearls, she had said, suspended within golden cut-work. Norrington himself had not noticed Elizabeth's jewelry, but Mrs. Swann had no reason to lie, and the statement had a disturbing plausibility to it, no matter how strongly something inside of him wished to believe Elizabeth innocent of any conniving or wrong-doing. Who better to receive Jack Sparrow's stolen booty than the two who had saved him from the hangman's noose?

Norrington took a deep breath, letting the air trickle out through his nose, and knocked.

Ten minutes later he was comfortably seated in the Governor's parlour, waiting for the housemaid to fetch Elizabeth down from her room. Across from him, Governor Swann straightened his wig nervously.

"You're sure that my daughter possesses the information you need?" he asked again.

"Not completely, sir," Norrington repeated. "But Mrs. Swann's account of her husband's murderer matches up very nicely with a certain escaped pirate of Elizabeth's, of _Mrs. Turner's_ acquaintance." He had not told the man about the earrings yet, concentrating solely on Elizabeth's past with Sparrow. There was no need to present the older man with such damaging evidence just yet. First, he would hear Elizabeth's explanation.

"Commodore." The voice came from the doorway, cool and polite, as she always was with him. "To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?"

"Mrs. Turner," he responded, rising to his feet and bowing slightly. "Much as I enjoy the pleasure of your company, I am afraid that this visit is of a very serious nature." Elizabeth paled slightly as he continued, but remained otherwise composed. "I must speak with you on a matter of some importance." He cast a significant glance at Governor Swann. "Alone, if that would not be too much of an imposition."

The governor nodded and left the room quietly, leaving the door open behind him. Elizabeth crossed slowly to the settee in which faced Norrington's own chair and sat down, carefully arranging her skirts. She was, he noted, wearing a pair of plain gold earrings now, which went well with her subdued cream coloured dress. "What do you need to speak with me about that cannot be discussed in front of my father?" she asked, still politely.

"Mrs. Turner," Norrington began, trying to keep his voice gentle and calm, "I have reason to believe that you may know something about the pirates who attacked your cousin's ship."

Not so much as a flicker of surprise showed on her face. "And why is that, Commodore?"

Norrington stifled the impulse to sigh in exasperation. She knew what he was here about, and was playing innocent. "Mrs. Swann provided me with a description of one of the marauders, as did the _Golden Dolphin_'s captain and several of her surviving crew members. Nearly all of them mentioned a man of medium height with a red scarf about his head and beads in his hair and beard. Does this sound familiar to you?"

"I have not seen Captain Sparrow since last summer." Elizabeth's voice and face were perfectly composed, but one hand toyed nervously with the pale fabric of her skirt. "He could be anywhere between here and Virginia, for all I know. I'm afraid I can't help you," she added, looking not at all sorry.

Norrington seethed inside with irritation. He had never been able to fathom Elizabeth's odd fascination with pirates, which had begun before he ever met her and had culminated eventually in the decision to collaborate with one, rescue one, and to marry a man who was in his opinion the next best thing to one. Sparrow, he was certain, would have found some way to communicate with Turner after the man had saved him from his much deserved fate at the hands of the law, and Elizabeth, who had played no small roll in the man's escape herself, would not have been left out of the loop. And then there were Mrs. Swann's earrings.

"Please do not lie to me," Norrington said. He could hear his voice hardening slightly as he went on. "I know that you have been in contact with him. I am willing to overlook that, if you will simply tell me where he is headed."

"Commodore, really," Elizabeth protested, "I do not know what you are talking about. I have no idea where he might be."

She was lying. Norrington wasn't sure how he knew that, but he was, nevertheless, certain of it. Elizabeth most definitely knew something. He prepared to fire his heaviest guns. "Mrs. Swann claims that Sparrow stole a pair of earrings from her when his pirates attacked the _Dolphin_. Golden earrings, set with pearls. She says that she saw you wearing an identical pair of earrings this morning."

One of Elizabeth's hands moved upward, as if to touch her earlobe. She halted the motion partway through and returned the hand to her lap. "Perhaps my cousin was mistaken. She may have been distracted by her grief."

"She was not mistaken," Norrington snapped. "You have seen Sparrow, you have spoken with Sparrow, you have received those earrings from Sparrow, at some point within the past three weeks. That, or your husband has." He curled the fingers of his right hand into a fist, imagining the smarmy pirate leering at Elizabeth, taking advantage of her fascination with his profession and her gratitude over his saving her life in order to winkle information out of her. Or perhaps he had made some sort of arrangement with Turner, selling off stolen gold to him to have it melted down and recast. "You must know something of his whereabouts. Even knowing how recently he was in Port Royal would help us," he added, trying to reason with her. He really did not want to have to threaten her with charges, or embarrass the governor by accusing his daughter of being an accomplice to piracy. "I understand that you feel some gratitude to him for saving you from drowning, but surely that debt has been paid."

"I'm sorry," Elizabeth said, sounding strained. "I can't tell you that."

"Why the devil not?" Norrington demanded. "Robert Swann was your own cousin!"

"I-" she started, then cut herself off. "I just can't," she repeated. 

"Don't tell me you feel more loyalty to that verminous blackguard than you do to your own flesh and blood!" Norrington kept himself from shouting with an effort, but his voice was still louder than usual as he snarled the accusation at her.

"He saved me!" she half-shouted in turn. "He saved Will! I won't repay that by helping you hang him, whether he deserves it or not. Besides, if I-" she stopped, looking away from him to study the brocade upholstery of the settee with distracted eyes. "Some loyalties are deeper than blood."

A dark slither of suspicion worked its way into Norrington's mind. No woman was that vehement in defence of a mere acquaintance. That strident-voiced declaration had all the passion of a lioness defending her mate.

"Turner is with him, isn't he?" Norrington slammed a fist down on the dark, polished wooden arm of his chair, leaping to his feet. "That's why he left Port Royal. He's not fixing a piece of ironwork for some planter, he's out there with that pirate! That's why you won't tell me where he's gone."

He saw by Elizabeth's sudden pallor that he had guessed right, and continued, "He was here two weeks ago. He could be anywhere in the Lesser Antilles by now. But if Turner's with him, he's got to come back here eventually, and I'll be waiting for him."

"He's not," Elizabeth protested, looking now on the verge of tears, though whether from misery or anger, Norrington was not sure.

"He is. Turner would never simply sail off and leave you, not after all of the trouble he went through to rescue you."

"He's not!" Elizabeth repeated, louder this time. Norrington's anger was momentarily tempered by the obvious distress in her face. It was, after all, only natural for her to defend her husband, no matter the scum he associated with.

"When I catch the _Black Pearl_, I will spare no man aboard her," Norrington warned. "I cannot, nor do I desire to, but I have no wish to hang your husband, my lady."

"Helping you to catch him is not going to do him any good." Elizabeth's jaw was set stubbornly. In her anger, she did not appear to notice that she had just all but admitted that Will Turner was aboard the _Black Pearl_.

"No, but it might do you some," Norrington told her. "How do you think you'll be treated, as the wife of a man wanted as a pirate? No one in Port Royal will ever speak to you again, and the Governor might even be forced to disown you. You can't want that, Elizabeth." Did she not realize how precarious her position was? How much being implicated in this could hurt her? "Please help me. It's for your own good."

Elizabeth stood abruptly, back stiffer than mere corsetry could account for. "This interview is over, sir," she said flatly, angrily. "One of the servants will see you out." She nearly stalked out of the room, not quite fleeing. 

Norrington stared after her in dismay. Why must she always be so stubborn? He could not make himself bring charges against her, no matter that her actions warranted it. And harbouring a pirate, or aiding one in any way, did warrant charges. But arresting Elizabeth? Such a thing was not possible, would not have been possible even had she not been the governor's daughter. Only months ago he had hoped to marry her, and even though those hopes had come to naught, he could not bring himself to do her any harm.

Her husband, on the other hand, was quite another matter entirely, as was Jack Sparrow. There was no way he could avoid bringing charges against Turner, not if he was sailing aboard Sparrow's ship, and seeing "Captain" Jack Sparrow dance on the end of a rope had been a personal ambition of his for over half a year.

Yes, catching Sparrow would be a pleasure.

^_~

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Lesser Antilles: Group of islands southeast of Puerto Rico, extending from the Virgin Islands to the coast of Venezuela.

Next up, _Chapter Six: In Which the Gallant Commodore Norrington Sails Forth in Search of Pirates._

Stay tuned for an entire chapter of Norrington POV. 


	6. In Which the Gallant Commodore Norringto...

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DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Disney. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. If _Pirates of the Caribbean_ were mine, it would probably be a bit more historically accurate. And slashier.  
**Posted by:** Elspeth (AKA Elspethdixon).  
**Author's Notes:** As before, I've only seen the movie once, so if you find any mistakes, inconsistencies, or inaccuracies in characterization, please tell me.   
**Ships:** Will/Elizabeth, Jack/Elizabeth, eventual Jack/Will, eventual Norrington/OC. Probably a bit of unrequited Norrington/Elizabeth as well.  
**Warning:** This story contains killing, stealing, lots of angst, an OC, and a non-evil Norrington. Sadly, it probably will not contain any hot, steamy sex scenes.

Chapter Six: In Which the Gallant Commodore Norrington Sails Forth in Search of Pirates.

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There was a gallant English ship  
A-sailing on the sea,  
(Blow high, blow low, and so say we;)  
And her Captain he was searching  
For a pirate enemy,  
(Cruising down along the coast  
Of the High Barbaree.)  


Why did the confounded woman have to be so headstrong? Norrington fumed inwardly as he supervised the loading of the _Endeavour_, still angry at Elizabeth's self-destructive stubbornness. He understood her need to be loyal to her husband, but surely there came a point at which any law-abiding Englishwoman ought to draw the line?

Except that Elizabeth's lines always seemed to be drawn a bit further to windward than most women's. 

It ought not to have bothered him on so deep a level--after all, Elizabeth Swann was none of his business anymore, now that she had become Mrs. William Turner instead of Mrs. Edward Norrington. Still, he had had an interest in her fate for too long to simply close it off now, whether it was his business or not. Confound the woman! One would think that actual exposure to pirates would have cured her of her silly, romantic notions, and eradicated any sympathy she might have had for the species. And confound Turner, too, for dragging her into this mess.

"Handsomely does it, Mr. Billings," he called to one of the _Endeavour_'s midshipmen, currently occupied with directing one of the hoists that was lifting provisions onto her deck for storage in the hold. "No need to tip her load into the harbour." Billings flushed and barked an order at the seamen manning the block and tackle, and the ropes stopped their uneven swinging. The _Endeavour_ was a new ship, the gold paint on her bows still fresh and un-faded, and she would get knocked about soon enough without assistance from over-eager midshipmen.

Overseeing the loading ought to have been part of Gillete's job as first officer, but Norrington was simply too impatient to get to sea to sit quietly by. Every moment that the big three-decker sat in habour gave Sparrow more time to escape, to slip by him, to weasel his way out of the hands of justice once again. He would apologize to Gillete for interfering later; it wouldn't do to let the man think he doubted his ability to do his duty. 

"Preparing for sea already, I see," came a voice at his elbow. Norrington spun around, startled, to find Governor Swann observing him, Mrs. Swann trailing behind him like a silent, fragile shadow.

"Yes, Sir," he managed. "I'd like to take her out on the evening tide."

"Good," the governor nodded. "Good on you, sir. The sooner you sail, the sooner you can bring those buccaneers to justice, eh, Commodore?"

"Something like that, Sir." Norrington essayed a smile. He still felt slightly uneasy in the older man's presence. The secret of Turner's whereabouts and Elizabeth's complicity weighed upon his mind. He had felt a proper hypocrite, telling the governor that he'd received word of Sparrow's course without mentioning the source, as if keeping Elizabeth's involvement with the man a secret somehow made him an accomplice as well. He had told himself that there was no need to worry the man when he had no concrete proof, but still, it bothered him.

Governor Swann sighed. "It would have been better for all concerned if we had simply hung Sparrow last summer. I regretted the need for it at the time, but now…" he let the sentence hang.

Norrington nodded. "Once a pirate, always a pirate. The cat doesn't change it's stripes just because the dog's almost caught it once before. This time, though, I mean to catch him and string him up. _Without_ any last minute interuptions."

"Hmm, yes," the governor harrumphed. He preferred to forget the part his daughter and son-in-law had played in that little debacle. In fact, most of Port Royal's government preferred to simply forget that the whole thing had ever taken place. The day they had almost hung "Captain" Jack Sparrow had been terribly embarrassing for all concerned. 

Why couldn't the bastard have had the grace to drown when he'd fallen off the rampart into the water?

"We are all hoping that you will return victorious, Commodore," Mrs. Swann put in softly, perhaps sensing the slight awkwardness that hovered around the mention of Sparrow's abortive hanging. "Our prayers will go with you." Her words were soft, but there was an edge of steel under them, especially when she mentioned his returning home victorious. 

"Thank you, ma'am," he said, meaning it. Prayers very rarely went anywhere with His Majesty's navy, unless one counted those of the sailors themselves. Most of the colonists in the islands had begun to take their presence for granted, muttering about incompetence when they were unable to prevent some piratical outrage, and shrugging it off as "nothing more than their duty" when they did succeed in thwarting some seagoing rogue. "As I said before, I shall do everything in my power to obtain justice for your husband. You have my word on it." He meant that, too. God knew the poor woman deserved some sort of recompense for the loss of her husband, even if it was only the dubious pleasure of seeing his killer hang.

Mrs. Swann nodded, and their eyes met for a moment. She had grey eyes, he noted. Grey with a hint of green in them. "It's I who should be thanking you," she told him. "You have been very kind to me these past few days. And if you do catch this man, I shall be grateful a thousand times over. Please do be careful out there, though," she added. "I'm sure it would be a great loss to Port Royal were you not to return."

Norrington smiled again, a real smile this time. "I assure you, Mrs. Swann, Governor, I have no intention of not returning. And when I do return, I hope to have Sparrow and his verminous crew in chains."

^_~

The quarterdeck, an old commanding officer of Norrington's had once told him, was a lonely place. Norrington had shrugged the comment off at the time, but the higher he rose in the navy the more he came to realize that the older officer had spoken the truth. A captain at sea was God on his own vessel, lord of life and death, which meant that he must never show indecision, or voice his doubts or qualms where others might hear them. Ashore, Governor Swann had occasionally acted as a sympathetic ear to Norrington, and he had once had hopes that Elizabeth might someday fill the position of concerned listener, but at sea, there was no one to truly talk to.

It wasn't that he had any doubts about his current course of actions, he mused, as the _Endeavour_ bore east from Jamaica, her topsails close-hauled against an easterly wind. It was just that, damn it all, he didn't _want_ to have to hang young Turner. The trouble was, catching and hanging Sparrow and his crew was practically the whole point of this little expedition, and one couldn't very well hang all of them but one. 

Turner had been a good lad, if a bit impetuous at times, and he truly was a talented swordsmith. The blade Norrington had bought from his smithy was the best he'd ever owned, and if the boy's old sot of a former master had made it, he'd eat his uniform hat. Turner would have made a halfway decent naval officer, as well, if he'd had the foresight to accept Norrington's offer, instead of throwing any prospective career away by joining up with pirates. If he so desperately wished to go to sea, why the devil could he not have done it legally? Especially since, a little voice whispered deep in Norrington's head, it would have gotten him out of Port Royal and away from Elizabeth before he managed to steal her away from you.

Norrington paced back and forth across the _Endeavour_'s quarterdeck, feeling the planks heave slightly beneath his feet. She was a stately thing, this new command of his, far larger and better armed than the poor, lost _Interceptor_, if not quite so fast, and her rigging was barely worn, ropes freshly tarred and sails white and unpatched. Her deck gleamed so white in the bright tropical sun that it almost hurt one's eyes to look at it for too long, and in her waist and below decks the big, black guns waited silently for a chance to be fired in their first action. _Endeavou_r had three full decks of guns, some of them massive 32-pounders, and she was going to smash Sparrow's smaller, more lightly armed frigate into flinders. 

The thought of the _Black Pearl's_ hull disintegrating into so many shards of black-painted wood under the force of his broadside made for a very satisfying mental image. Sparrow and his wretched, cursed ship were at the heart of this mess. It was Sparrow who had lured young Turner away to sea, Sparrow who had helped sway Elizabeth away from her duty as a proper young Englishwoman (and not for the first time, either--he had his suspicions that Sparrow had somehow had a hand in her decision to marry Turner), Sparrow whose ship had played such merry havoc with shipping in the area lately, and Sparrow who had made Mrs. Swann a widow at so young an age. It was that last, oddly enough, which angered him the most, though as a naval officer it was the threat to local shipping which really ought to concern him. Mrs. Swann had deserved better than to have her husband taken from her by a mad, drunken lout of a buccaneer. She had made a brave decision, following Robert Swann to relocate in the West Indies, only to lose him and most of her capital before ever setting foot upon the soil of her new home. Now she was alone in a strange land, living on the charity of her husband's relations in a town where she knew no one, and somehow she still found the strength to be concerned about _his_ safety. 

The least he could do for her in return was to carry out his duty and apprehend Sparrow. Perhaps some of her lost possessions could be reclaimed at the same time, though Norrington rather doubted that. Likely, Sparrow had already sold or traded them all, and given all of the jewelry away to other people's wives. Lecherous little blackguard. Norrington had seen the way the man had looked at Elizabeth, hadn't missed the way he'd sliced her corset open that day back on the Port Royal docks. He'd followed that outrage up by manhandling her in front of half a squad of Royal marines. Probably, the piece of scum had treated Mrs. Swann in the same cavalier manner. In fact, she was lucky that her jewelry and her husband were the only things she had lost in that encounter.

No, he wasn't going to regret hanging Sparrow at all, whatever he thought about hanging Turner. "Captain" Jack Sparrow had it coming to him. And when the _Black Pearl_ sailed for Jamaica in a few days, or weeks, as she must eventually, he would find _Endeavour_ waiting for him, more than anxious to deliver.

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Ship of the Line: The largest class of ship in the British Navy, having three square-rigged masts and three gun decks with up to 140 guns. Generally made pirates flee in terror.

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Windward: the direction the wind is blowing _from_, as opposed to **leeward**, the direction the wind is blowing _toward_. Facing windward, one would have the wind in one's face, while facing leeward would put it at one's back. The **lee** side of a ship or island was the side sheltered from or away from the wind.

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handsomely: Eighteenth-century British navy slang for slowly and carefully.

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Close-hauled: bracing one's sails about so as to sail as close to (into) the wind as possible.

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Easterly wind: A wind blowing from the east. In sailing, winds are named for the direction they blow from, not the direction the blow towards.

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Frigate: A mid-sized ship, three-masted and square-rigged like a ship of the line, but much smaller and with only one and a half gun decks (20-40 guns). The _Black Pearl_ isn't exactly a frigate in the movie (she's some weird mutant ship that Disney made up), but it's the closest real ship type I could come up with.

^_~

Yes, I did name Norrington's ship of the line after the space shuttle (though it was also the name of Captain Cook's ship). The British navy seems to have a long tradition of giving ships names that sound like they belong to space shuttles (_Intrepid, Indefatigable, Resolution, Reliance, _ect.) so I decided that this one would fit right in.

Thank you to all my reviewers.

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Stormy1x2: Thank you! Unfortunately, no chapter with that title is planned, though there will be on in which Elizabeth Acts Most Unladylike. Will, Elizabeth, and Jack do have a certain something together, don't they? *hearts OT3 *

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Jehan's Muse: Thank you! I'm not sure what's with this trend of making Norrington into PotC's answer to fanon Lucius Malfoy, but I'm trying to do him a bit more justice in this fic. He wasn't evil in the movie, after all, just a decent guy trying to do his job. Thanks also for the warning about Mary Rose (who will, in fact, be hooking up with Norrington eventually, since the poor guy is getting neither Elizabeth, Jack, nor Will and deserves *something *). Hopefully she won't get out of hand in the coming chapters, since I find Elizabeth more fun to write.

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Kaitou Ann: Thank you! I'm glad you're liking the characterization (I worry a bit about getting Jack & Co. right, since I've only seen the movie once). 

Next up, Chapter Seven: _In Which Elizabeth and Mary Rose Quarrel, and Elizabeth Comes to a Disconcerting Realization._

There will be shouting, vicious remarks, rather graphic visual aids, and quite possibly tears.

  



	7. In Which Elizabeth & Mary Rose Quarrel, ...

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DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Disney. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. If it were mine it would be more historically accurate. And slashier.

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Posted by: Elspeth (AKA Elspethdixon).

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Author's Notes: Well, now I've seen PotC for a second time, so I can no longer blame any mistakes or poor characterization on lack familiarity. I'd still appreciate being told about any, though. Oh yes, and the quotes at the beginning of the chapters come from several old ballads about sailors & the sea.

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Ships: Will/Elizabeth, Jack/Elizabeth, eventual Jack/Will, eventual Norrington/OC. Probably a bit of unrequited Norrington/Elizabeth as well.

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Warning: This story contains killing, stealing, lots of angst, an OC, and a non-evil Norrington. Sadly, it probably will not contain any hot, steamy sex scenes.

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Chapter Seven: In Which Elizabeth and Mary Rose Quarrel, and Elizabeth Comes to a Disconcerting Realization.

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Oh captain, captain, tell me true,  
Does my own Willie sail with you?  
Tell me soon to give me joy.  
None will I have but my sailor boy.

Once Norrington had sailed out from Port Royal in the _Endeavour_, Elizabeth's anxiety grew with every passing day. Every morning she went straight to the window as soon as she woke, searching the horizon for any hint of a sail, hoping desperately that Jack and Will might have slipped past Norrington's patrolling ship of the line. Hoping to see the dark, wraithlike from of the _Black Pearl_rounding the headland, and praying not to see the _Endeavour_, returning victorious with Jack and his crew--and Will--in chains.

Days passed, and the only sails she saw belonged to an East India Trading Company vessel out of the Bahamas. Her father, who was not a stupid man by any means, nor an unobservant one, had noticed her distraction, and began to ask after Will. Surely, he pressed, the boy's job in Barbados--or was it Port au Prince?--would be finished soon, he inquired, with a hint of disapproval in his voice for a man who insisted on pursuing a career as a tradesman after marrying into the upper class. She had managed to put him off, but she could not do so indefinitely.

By the time a week had gone by, Elizabeth was half-crazed with worry, and her bedroom window was no longer a satisfactory vantage point. She took to walking on the Palisadoes every morning and evening, pacing back and forth in the sand while her eyes scanned the sea, finding it empty in every quarter. Why, she castigated herself as she watched, had she not kept silent when Norrington had questioned her? Why, oh why had she not kept calm, continued to play innocent? If Will was captured and hung, it would be entirely her fault, for she had given Norrington the final clue necessary for him to set his plan in motion.

On her third walk, as she wandered up and down the sandy straight gazing eastward at the slowly purpling horizon, she met Mary Rose.

The other woman was walking down the beach toward her, treading much higher up on the sand, where there was no danger of a wave wetting her shoes. She too was gazing seaward, as if watching for someone's return. When she saw Elizabeth, she paused momentarily, then began to move purposefully toward her.

Elizabeth was strongly tempted to flee. She had purposefully avoided her cousin-in-law over the past week, knowing that Mary Rose must think the absolute worst of her, and wanting little to do with the other woman herself. It was not, she reflected, feeling a sudden burst of resentment at the sight of the other woman, entirely her fault that Norrington was sailing in pursuit of Jack. Mary Rose, after all, had set him on the pirate's trail, like a hunting dog running down a brace of rabbits.

She had not returned the earrings, either, perhaps because to do so would have meant admitting once and for all that Jack had stolen them, and thus was truly her cousin's killer. The things lay hidden in the bottom of a drawer now, in the same spot where Will's cursed gold piece had once lain. 

"Mrs. Turner," Mary Rose said coolly, as she drew within speaking distance. Her delicate face was set in an expression of genteel contempt, lips slightly pursed. "Watching for someone?"

There was little point in denying it, so Elizabeth didn't even try. Instead, she dodged the question completely, responding with, "I could ask the same of you. Most women would prefer other paths for an evening stroll."

For a moment, she thought the other woman was not going to answer, and that their conversation would end there. Her hopes were disappointed. Mary Rose appeared to consider for a long moment, then spoke. "I am looking to see whether the _Endeavour _is approaching. The Commodore should be due in any day now, and I wish to greet him when he returns." She added, with a sort of quiet dignity, "He promised to bring Robert's killer back in irons, and I want to be there when he does. To thank him." Her eyes narrowed. "And you? I assume you are not eager to greet him."

Elizabeth glared right back at her. "You can hardly expect me to be," she snapped. 

"I should think a respectable young lady such as yourself would be happy to see justice carried out," Mary Rose returned, laying a delicate emphasis on "respectable" and "lady." Her voice stretched tight as she continued, "My husband was your cousin. You should be happy to see him avenged. Unless you're too besotted with the gifts you get from that, from that…" she faltered a moment, apparently unable to come up with a suitable epithet to describe Jack. "From his murderer."

"I-" Elizabeth jumped to defend herself, but stopped short. There was really nothing she could say to that. Mary Rose did not know that Will was sailing with Jack, and informing her of the fact, or protesting again that the earrings had been a wedding gift, would only earn her even more contempt. "I am sorry about your husband," she ventured, attempting to truly sound it. The fact was, she was growing steadily less sorry as the danger to Will weighed ever heavier on her mind. If it weren't for Robert and his blasted wife, Will and Jack wouldn't be in peril now, and if that resentment made her unnatural, as she guiltily suspected it did, so be it.

"Sorry," Mary Rose snapped, sounding angry now. "Sorry. Give me my earrings back, if you're sorry. Give me my husband back, if you're sorry." Her voice caught on that last, and she blinked hard several times. "If you were sorry, you'd have gone to the Commodore yourself and told him where to find this 'Jack Sparrow.'" She almost spat the name.

"I'd rather have my tongue torn out," Elizabeth spat back. She clenched a fist in the fabric of her skirts, feeling the weave of the muslin against her fingers. A rising tide of anger rose in her to meet Mary Rose's, and the sympathy she ought to have felt for the other woman was washed away in its wake.

"I can't believe you'd defend him!" Mary Rose half-shouted. "He's a pirate. And he'll hang as a pirate when the Commodore catches him, him and all his crew. Someday soon _that_," she flung an arm up, the lace edging her sleeve fluttering in the evening breeze, to stab a finger in the direction of Gallows Point, "is going to be Jack Sparrow, and serve him right!"

Elizabeth's eyes followed the line from Mary Rose's pointing finger to the wooden beam fixed permanently athwart the rocky arch that marked Gallows Point. From it dangled the remains of two pirates, probably the same two who had hung there when she had met Jack in this self-same spot. They had rotted away until they were naught but weathered bone, picked clean by seabirds, and the left-hand one was beginning to disintegrate, much of its arms and legs missing.

For a moment, Elizabeth's vision wavered, and the right-hand skeleton seemed to sport a ragged red scarf about its bleached skull, the brittle remnants of matted black hair clinging to bone under it. White bone gleamed in the red light of the sunset, desiccated tendons stretching over it and flesh crumbling away. It was hideously, horribly familiar.

"Oh God, no," she choked, taking an involuntary step backwards. The skeleton was just another skeleton now, faceless and anonymous in death, but her mind could fill in the necessary details easily. Scarves, beads, and boots, the tattered remains of shirts, black elf-locks on the one corpse, and brittle, shoulder-length brown tangles on the other… "Stop it," she half-shrieked. "Don't say that! You lost your husband, and now you want me to lose the men I-" she broke off, appalled, staring at Mary Rose's shocked face. The other woman looked stunned, pale lashed fluttering as her greyish-green eyes opened wide. Elizabeth very nearly clapped a hand over her mouth, glancing back at the skeletons, which seemed to mock her as they swung gently in the freshening wind. "The men I… I won't lose both of them. I won't." And to her horror, she started to cry.

Mary Rose took a tentative step toward her, then stopped. She opened her mouth as if to speak, then closed it, apparently stunned silent by the violence of Elizabeth's reaction.

Elizabeth turned away from her and fled, leaving the other woman standing alone on the sand, staring after her in astonishment. She had to get away, away from the skeletons, away from Mary Rose, from those pale-lashed eyes that watched her so accusingly, and the empty sockets that gazed blind and hollow at her.

The image of Jack and Will's dead bodies pursued her, fleshed out--or, rather, grotesquely _not_ fleshed out--by the unwelcome hand of memory. For some reason, the thought of a world without Jack Sparrow was nearly as cold and hollow as that of a world without Will Turner. Losing Will would be like having the very earth beneath her feet taken away, losing Jack like waking one morning to discover the sea flat and lifeless and the sun gone from the sky. The thought of losing both together sent a sharp stab of pain though her, as if someone had driven one of Will's red hot bars of iron into her gut and twisted it.

Elizabeth ran halfway back to her father's house before lack of breath forced her to stagger to a slow walk. By that point, Mary Rose had been left far behind, not that she cared much about the other woman's whereabouts, at the moment, so long as she was out of sight. Perhaps the Palisadoes were not such a good place to watch from after all, with their gruesome reminders of the fate awaiting her husband and her… friend? Did one become horrified to the point of nausea at the thought of seeing the corpse of a friend?

Maybe. But did the memory of a friend's touch make one half-blush and wish for more? Perhaps there was a reason beyond denial for keeping those earrings. Will had kissed her while taking them out, and made love to her after they were gone, and Jack had put them in for her, fingers warm against her ears and throat. And now it was entirely possible that she'd never see either of them alive again, that her last memory of each would be those two encounters.

Damn Mary Rose for flinging it in her face. She didn't want to think about it. She wouldn't think about it. Wouldn't think about losing Will, or watching Jack hang.

Because she was beginning to suspect, with an uncomfortable sense of misery, that she loved them both.

^_~

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Athwart: Nautical slang for "across."

Thank you to all of my reviewers!

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Jennie & KGD: Thank you! I'm glad y'all like my characterization. It's the facet of this fic I worry most about. (Especially Jack, daft and hard to write as he is).

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Flidget: Thank you! The glossary bits were suggested by a fellow poster on the pirategasm livejournal, who complained that some of the nautical stuff was a bit confusing.

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WCSPegasus: Thank you! I'm trying to keep Mary Rose the plot device from crossing that dreaded MS line (or the "vindictive bitch" line). You're welcome on the fic recs. I read some of yours as well and enjoyed them ^_^.

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Jehan's Muse: Thank you! I've had some practice trying portray two rivals/enemies as good guys without demonizing one (Sirius and Snape are/were my favourite Harry Potter characters). Hopefully I'll continue to pull it off. *grins * Norrington can have Gillette in the Gilbert & Sullivan parody I've got in the works.

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Lea of Mirkwood: Thank you! I like Norrington too *huggles noble, dutiful Commodore * Naval Officers are hot.

Next up, _Chapter Eight, In Which the Gallant Ship Endeavor Engages the Black Pearl in Battle._

Will Norrington catch up with our heroes? Well, yes, that's what the title implies, but can he capture them? And is Will going to keep on blushing all the time? Stay tuned for warfare and mayhem on the high seas, and perhaps a bit of subtext.


	8. In Which the Gallant Ship Endeavour Enga...

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DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Disney. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. Come on, if it were mine, do you honestly think we would have gotten all the way through the movie without ever seeing Jack shirtless?  
**Posted by:** Elspeth (AKA Elspethdixon).  
**Author's Notes:** As before, I've only seen the movie once, so if you find any mistakes, inconsistencies, or inaccuracies in characterization, please tell me.   
**Ships:** Will/Elizabeth, Jack/Elizabeth, eventual Jack/Will, eventual Norrington/OC. Probably a bit of unrequited Norrington/Elizabeth as well.  
**Warning:** This story contains killing, stealing, lots of angst, an OC, and a non-evil Norrington. Sadly, it probably will not contain any hot, steamy sex scenes.

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Chapter Eight: In Which the Gallant Ship _Endeavour_ Engages the _Black Pearl_ in Battle.

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"There's nought upon the stern,  
There's nought upon the lee,"  
(Blow high, blow low, and so say we;)  
"But there's a lofty ship to windward  
And she's sailing fast and free,"  
(Cruising down along the coast  
Of the High Barbaree.)

The sun was sinking low in the sky ahead of them, its long fiery trail across the water like a pathway home, when Matelot spotted a patch of white to windward of the masthead when Will, standing beside Jack at the helm, found himself being hauled toward the wheel. 

Jack seized both his hands, forced them around two of the spokes, and hissed, "hold her steady on this bearin' and don't move your hands a quarter-inch or I'll keelhaul you." Then he was at the mizzenmast shrouds, swarming up them with such speed that Will could suddenly see why Barbossa had named his monkey "Jack."

"Use both hands, you idiot!" Anamaria bellowed from her canvass deckchair. She was sitting by the leeward rail, arm still suspended in a sling, and was eyeing both Will and Jack jealously. Inactivity seemed to chafe her mercilessly.

Will, standing nervously with his hands locked round the spokes of the _Pearl_'s wheel, watched Jack's ascent with horror. He was nearly to the crossjack yard, clinging to the ropes with fingers and bare toes. "He's going to fall and kill himself," he breathed. "We'll be swabbing bits of pirate off the deck planking."

Anamaria snorted. "I've seen him go aloft dead drunk in the middle of a gale to reef topsails. He never falls." She stood from the deckchair and strained up onto her tiptoes, craning her neck to try and catch sight of the aforementioned sail. "Blast this arm," she muttered to herself. "I want a look too."

Will shifted his grip on the wheel slightly, bracing his arms against the weight of the water on the rudder. It took a lot more strength than one would think. "Ah, you aren't going to attack whoever it is, are you?" he asked tentatively. "Because if you did, that would make me an accessory, and I don't think my father-in-law would like that." Nor would he. Sailing with a pirate crew was all well and good, but attacking innocent vessels… He shifted his grip on the wheel again. The wood beneath his fingers was smooth as silk, polished by countless caresses, and touching it felt oddly intimate. Jack's fingers had been resting here only moments ago, and the wood was still warm from the heat of his hands. He wished Jack would get back down there and take over again.

Anamaria grinned, her features taking on an almost wolfish look. "That depends on who it is, Blacksmith."

Beautiful. Will sighed. Tortuga lay several day' sailing behind them, and Port Royal and its attendant boredom waited just beyond the western horizon. Why couldn't this other ship have waited a few days before crossing the _Black Pearl'_s path?

He was about to protest again when Jack suddenly came sliding down one of the shrouds, letting go while still several yards above the deck and landing in a sort of roll, coming to his feet afterward like a performer.

"Show off," Anamaria muttered. Then she caught a look at his face and fell silent.

"What is it?" Will demanded. Jack looked decidedly less than happy, maybe even a touch uneasy.

"Yon ship," Jack waved his right hand at the three masts that were now visible to windward, "is a British ship of the line."

"Which means-" Will started to ask, but Anamaria was already talking over him.

"Are you sure? Oh, bloody hell, of course you're sure. What do you want me to do?"

Jack closed his eyes for a second, bringing his two hands together before him as if praying. Then he spread them wide, placing one on Anamaria's shoulder. "Go roust out everyone below. Tell them to run out the guns." He grinned, a familiar, crazy grin that made Will's heart sink. "If they manage to catch us, we'll make them wish they hadn't."

Anamaria darted off. Her collarbone might still be healing, but there was nothing wrong with her feet. Or her voice. "Clear for battle and run out the guns," she bellowed as she went, voice carrying from one side of the ship to the other.

Jack, meanwhile, was ordering the pirates on deck aloft, yelling at them to clap on every shred of sail they could. Will, still manning the helm and feeling more uneasy by the minute, watched the sudden flurry of activity with deep misgivings.

"Jack," he asked, knowing his voice sounded strangled and wishing fervently that it didn't, "what's going on?" And come and take the helm back, you bastard, he added silently.

"You see that pretty ship over yonder, lad?" Jack waved at the other ship again. The entire thing was visible over the horizon now, though only the sails had been showing a minute ago. "Well, she's a British man o' war, a first rate, and since Port Royal's the only place this far west and south that one of those would be stationed, her captain'll recognize the _Pearl_ the moment he sees her. And then it's three gun decks' worth of broadsides and twenty-four pound roundshot for us."

Will felt his eyes widening and his eyebrows going up. "I thought we were the fastest ship in the Caribbean. Surely we can outrun them."

Jack shook his head and sighed, as if correcting a rather slow student. "With the wind blowin' from this direction, she'll make better headway than us, savvy? Unless the wind takes it into its head to come about a few points, she'll close on us before sunset." He grinned again, hands on hips. "You think you can stand to fight beside pirates, mate?"

"I have before, haven't I" Will said, stung that Jack would doubt him. Then he realized what fighting with the _Black Pearl_'s crew would mean. If he took up arms against a ship of the Royal Navy, he would be a pirate as certainly as any man with a brand on his wrist. There would be no returning to a respectable life in Port Royal then. He'd been pardoned twice already, and he had a feeling that the third time was definitely not going to be the charm.

"Right then." Jack reclaimed the wheel, laying a hand on Will's shoulder as he did so. "Go and pick yourself a gun crew to join up with."

And Will went. Elizabeth would understand. Had she been there, she would have done the same.

The other ship moved far more quickly than Will could have wished, and by the time the rim of the sun was touching the water, she was nearly upon them. There was no view of her from Will's place at the second of the stern chasers, but McTaggart, who kept bending to peer expectantly out of the gun port, kept them all abreast of her position. He had apparently been a man o' war's man himself once, and thus was able to provide a sincerely less-than-encouraging estimate of how long they had before the _Pearl_ came in range of her guns.

"Any moment now," he opined, pulling his head back from the open port. "For what we are about to receive," he intoned solemnly, placing one hand to his breast in an attitude of mock prayer, "may the Lord make us truly thankful."

Scarcely had he spoken when the sound of distant gunfire ripped through the air, followed by a substantial splash to larboard.

"Fire!" Anamaria yelled down through the hatchway, and Twigg touched the match to the pan. The powder went up with a flash, followed by an earth-shattering boom as the nine-pounder went off, slamming back against its houseings with the force of the explosion. Will leaped forward to sponge her out while McTaggart stood ready with cartridge and shot.

They ran the gun out again and fired it a second time, but Will couldn't see whether or not the shot struck home. Then they were heaving it about to the left with handspikes, following Twigg's directions as he peered out through the gun port at their enemy.

"A few more inches should do it. She's coming about for a broadside."

And then the air was split by a shattering bang, all too familiar to Will from the fight aboard the _Interceptor_, and something struck the _Pearl_ a solid blow. He winced, picturing Jack's reaction to the damage being done to his ship, then winced again as they fired the chase gun a third time. His ears were never going to recover from this. Never.

Through the ringing in said abused ears, Will dimly heard a crow of triumph from above.

"Ha! She's shifted three points! Take that, you bastards!"

Will risked a glance out the gun port, and saw the navy ship's sails slacken slightly. The wind was changing. He felt like crowing himself. They were going to get away.

They fired the long nine a final time, but the last ball fell short, the other ship already dropping behind them as the _Pearl_ picked up speed. Once he and McTaggart had the gun run in again, Will left his post and went back on deck, looking about with a bit of trepidation to see how bad the damage was.

Compared with the aftermath of the battle with the _Interceptor_, it wasn't too bad. Several spars were hanging loosely, and the mizen had a large hole right through the middle, but most of the force of the broadside seemed to have missed them. 

Jack was still at the wheel, making a rude gesture back at their erstwhile opponent, which was quickly diminishing to stern of them. He grinned broadly when he saw Will, and beckoned him over.

"You're a real pirate now, love," he said, gesturing at Will's powder-smudged clothes. "Fired on one of His Majesty's ships and everythin'. You all right?"

Will nodded, his ears still ringing slightly. "You?"

Jack made a face. "My coat needs mendin'." He plucked at a rip on the sleeve of his coat, just above his left elbow. "And it's me only one, too."

Will followed Jack's gaze to an ugly gouge in the larboard rail, where a ball of roundshot had punched through. He swallowed. Had it come through couple of yards to the left, there would be no more Jack. A couple of feet to the left, and the splinters would probably have done more than just rip his coat.

"You sure you're all right?" Jack asked, swaying closer to him to peer up at his face. Dark eyes studied him closely. "You look a bit sick."

"No, I'm fine," Will countered quickly. "How badly are we damaged?"

A question about the _Black Pearl_ could always drag Jack away from any other concern. "Most of the shot went overhead-like. I think one or two of them hulled her, though." He patted the wheel gently, almost as if he were consoling a wounded animal. "We'll lay alongside there," he pointed to a small island just visible off to leeward, "and put things right." He gave Will a disarming smile, gold teeth glinting. "Next time you fight with us, I'll see you get some sort of reward afterward."

Twilight was deepening the blue of the sky to purple when the _Black Pearl_ finally reached the little islet, which turned out to be a rather ugly mound of barren rock inhabited solely by seabirds. They dropped anchor, and as the crew began clearing the deck of debris and preparing to bring down the torn sail, Gibbs approached Jack and Will to announce, "There's two foot of water in the hold. I've set some lads on the pumps, but someone needs to go and find out where we've been hulled to stop it coming in."

Jack made a face of total and ostentatious disgust, and muttered something absolutely filthy and extremely creative under his breath. In response to Will's inquiring look, he added aloud, "Somebody's got to go over the side, and I'm the only man aboard who can swim." Suddenly, a thought seemed to strike him, and he turned large, innocent, pleading eyes on Will. "I don't suppose you can swim, by any chance?"

Will looked back into those dark, liquid, khol-smudged eyes, and answered, "If I could, I'd be a fool to admit it."

Gibbs made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a stifled laugh. "He's got you there, Cap'n."

As Jack began stripping off hat, coat, and boots, muttering darkly to himself all the while, the crew began to drift over curiously.

Jack had his hand on the rail when a voice--it sounded like Hopkins--remarked, "How many sharks do you think there are hereabouts?"

Jack's hand drew back from the rail as if someone had slapped it.

"Dunno," McTaggart answered, leaning one elbow on the rail and peering speculatively down into the dark water. "A dozen? Two dozen?"

"The next person who mentions sharks," Jack announced, in conversational tones, "will get to man the bilge pumps all by his onesies. All the way to Port Royal and back to Tortuga." He stripped off his pistol and handed it to Will, who already had all of Jack's other "effects" piled in a neat heap at his feet. "Take this. If you see a shark, shoot it, savvy?"

"Ah, right." Will nodded, looking at the firearm doubtfully. He might be the best swordsman in Port Royal, but when it came to pistols, he doubted he could hit the broad side of a building at twenty paces. Especially not with Jack's gun, which had most definitely seen better days.

Jack dove into the water so cleanly that there was hardly a splash and surfaced to tread water alongside the _Pearl_'s hull, trailing one hand along her timbers. Will kept a dutiful watch for sharks, praying that he wouldn't actually see one and deciding that if he did, he would hurl his sword at it rather than risk shooting Jack by accident.

Jack spent upwards of thirty minutes in the water, diving and re-surfacing, his white shirt a spot of pale color against the deep blue of the sea. Finally, he waved an imperious hand up at the watching pirates, and Gibbs let down a rope.

Jack swarmed up it with alacrity, glancing back over his shoulder once--probably to check one last time for the absent sharks. Will, his mind suddenly fastening on how cold that dark water must be--it was still only March, after all, ducked aft into Jack's cabin quickly, coming out again in time to hear Jack say:

"There's a hole right underneath the waterline. About a dozen feet forward of the stern. We can probably patch it from the inside. Hopkins, McTaggart," he added, "You're the ones who had to go on about sharks like a pair of idiots. You can do it."

Hopkins made a face, and McTaggart seemed about to object, but a nudge from the man beside him sent him heading for the hatchway. Gibbs went after them, presumably to supervise.

"Where's Will got to?" Jack asked of no one in particular, glancing about the assembled crew. Water was dripping from the ends of his hair to pool on the deck about his feet, and his soaked shirt clung to him, outlining the muscles of his chest and arms.

Will stepped forward then, holding out his prizes from Jack's cabin.

Jack plucked the blanket and the bottle of rum from his hands eagerly. "William Turner," he proclaimed, as he slung the patched expanse of wool around his shoulders, "I love you. If you didn't have a mustache, I'd kiss you. In fact," he added, as he broached the bottle of rum and took a healthy swig, "I might just make an exception and do it anyway."

Sometimes, it was difficult to tell when Jack was joking and when he was being serious.

A damp arm was slung over Will's shoulder, and a loud, slightly slurred voice proclaimed, "bring my effects, will you, I'm going below to put on something dry," directly in his ear. Will ducked out from under the arm--too late to save his shirt from getting wet--and scooped up Jack's coat, hat, ect., following him into the cabin that had once been Barbossa's. Now that the entertainment was over, the rest of the crew was scattering, some of them pondering aloud what the best method might be of catching a few of those confounded noisy seabirds for a hot dinner as they drifted away.

Will set his burden down on the table and turned to see Jack pulling off his dripping shirt. He wrung the soaked linen out, sending a shower of water down onto planking, and tossed it over the top of a sea chest, then stretched his arms up and out, rotating his shoulders.

He'd never seen Jack shirtless before, Will found himself thinking absently as his eyes traveled over the expanse of wet, tanned skin. There were a handful of thin, white scars scattered across his back, though nothing like the mess of scar tissue that had turned McTaggart's back into a ragged horror--he had abandoned his career as a British tar after a particularly brutal flogging--and he had a tattoo on his left shoulder blade, a sea serpent coiled into sinuous loops and biting its own tail. There was another tattoo on his right bicep, a beautifully detailed compass rose with fancy, almost calligraphy-like letters marking the cardinal directions, but Will found his attention caught not by the artwork (which was fairly tame compared to some of the things the other pirates sported) but by the way the light from the hanging lamp gleamed of Jack's swarthy skin, the way little beads of water ran down the muscles of his arms and stomach… He was totally different from Elizabeth, dark where she was pale and with hard angles where she had soft curves.

He blinked, and shook himself out of his reverie. "Where do you keep the spare shirts?" he heard himself ask.

"Chest in the corner." Jack waved a languid hand, then dropped down onto the bed, leaning back against the bulwark and taking another swig of rum. Swallowing did interesting things to the muscles in his throat. "Leave that alone and come here." 

Will came, bringing a dry shirt with him. "Getting wet can make you sick, you know," he told Jack, as he handed the garment over.

Jack accepted it, but didn't put it on right away. "I'm Captain Jack Sparrow. I never get sick. Well, except for that one time I had the yellow jack, but your father and Barbossa pulled me through that one. That was before Barbossa turned into a vicious, mutineerin', ship-stealin' bastard," he added.

"Does yellow jack really make your skin turn orange?" Will asked, curious in spite of himself. He had never had the disease, though it was endemic farther inland among the cane plantations.

"Aye."

"And does blood really come out of your-"

"Aye, it does," Jack nodded. "'Least, it did accordin' to Bootstrap. I don't remember that bit."

"That's disgusting."

"That's what he said." Jack offered Will a smile, and added, in a quieter and more serious voice, "You did a good job today, you know. Old Bootstrap would have been proud."

Will shrugged, feeling a bit awkward. "I didn't do much. Just helped out with one of the guns."

"You're gettin' to be a decent hand aloft, too. You never answered my question back in Tortuga, y'know."

Will didn't have to ask which question. He responded with a question of his own. "What's that?" He touched a finger to a line of ink on Jack's left forearm. It looked new, darker and bolder than his other tattoos.

Jack angled his arm slightly so that the lamplight fell across his skin, picking out the skull inked half-way between his elbow and wrist. There was a scarf tied about its bony forehead, carefully filled in with red ink.

Will very nearly recoiled. "Why did you _get_ that?" he demanded. "It's horribly creepy."

Jack looked deeply impressed. "D'you know, you're the first person to realize what it's s'possed to be?"

"It's disturbing!" Will wasn't certain why he was being so vehement, but considering the way skeletal pirates had figured in his nightmares for weeks after their adventures with the _Pearl_'s curse, he figured he had an excuse. "It looks…" He shook his head. "Why?"

Jack began pulling his dry shirt on. "There's an old saying," he said, voice muffled by the fabric. "In Latin, from back when everyone spoke like a Spanish mass all the time." His head popped through the neck of the shirt and he turned to look at Will. "_Memento mori_. Means, don't forget you're gonna die." He twitched his sleeve back and fingered the tattoo, which really did look disturbingly like he had while under the curse. "This is sort of like a… memento, savvy?"

"I savvy, but I think it's daft. Daft and unspeakably morbid. Elizabeth will love it," he added.

"Of course she will." Jack smirked. "No woman can resist a tattoo. You should get one."

Will managed to keep from cringing at the thought, but only just. "I'd rather get earrings."

"Those too." Jack grinned, and rose to fetch his damp shirt from its place across the sea chest, swaying back and forth in time with the motions of the ship, which was rocking gently at anchor. "You're all over dirt." He began dabbing at Will's face-still smudged with the evidence of his stint as a gunner--with the edge of a wet sleeve, heedless of the mess it was making of one of his few shirts.

"Stop it." Will tried to fend him off, with little success. Jack's hands seemed to slid around his, intent on their irritating mission.

"Can't send you back to Elizabeth all grimy." The makeshift wash rag flicked the end of Will's nose. "No matter how dashing you look in grime."

"I do not look dashing in grime. No one looks dashing in grime."

"You do. It makes you look all dangerous and determined, like a proper scallywag."

Will felt absurdly pleased at the backhanded compliment. He supposed it was a compliment, anyway. He tried not to let it show. He didn't want to look like a "proper scallywag" he reminded himself firmly. He wanted to look like a blacksmith. A respectable, successful blacksmith.

"I really could kiss you, if you didn't have a wife and a mustache." Jack gave Will's face one last swipe--right along the edge of his gaping jaw--and stood up again, tossing the shirt, which was now dirty as well as wet, into a corner. "Let's go see if Hopkins and McTaggart have scuttled her yet."

^_~

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Mizenmast: The aft-most mast on a three-masted ship (the one closest to the stern).

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Crossjack yard: lowest yardarm on the mizzenmast.

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Ship of the line/first rate: the largest class of British warships (three masts, three gun decks). Pirates usually avoided them like the plague.

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Chase guns: smaller guns mounted at the stern and/or bow of a ship, to fire directly behind or in front of her.

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Larboard: The left-hand side of the ship, when one is facing the bow. Opposite of starboard (can also be called "port").

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Points: The direction of the wind was defined, not by angles, but by compass points.

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Mizen: lowest sail on the mizenmast.

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Yellow jack: Yellow fever. It ran rife in the Caribbean in the eighteenth century, to the point where some island postings gained a reputation as death traps. Yes, it really does turn the skin orangy-yellow (hence the name). In advanced stages, it causes victims to vomit black bile and bleed from the nose and mouth. If you ever go to South America, get a vaccine.

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Scuttle: to sink a ship (usually by knocking a large hole in her bottom).

^_~

Who else thinks a compass rose would be an awesome tattoo for a sailor to have? So much sexier and more original than an anchor. Oh yeah, and anyone else recognize that slightly spoilerish skull on the movie poster?

Next up, Chapter Nine: _In Which the Endeavour Closes with Her Enemy._

Warfare and mayhem on the high seas, part II!


	9. In Which the Endeavour Closes with her E...

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DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Disney. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. Come on, if it were mine, do you honestly think we would have gotten all the way through the movie without ever seeing Jack shirtless?  
**Posted by:** Elspeth (AKA Elspethdixon).  
**Author's Notes:** As before, I've only seen the movie once, so if you find any mistakes, inconsistencies, or inaccuracies in characterization, please tell me.   
**Ships:** Will/Elizabeth, Jack/Elizabeth, eventual Jack/Will, eventual Norrington/OC. Probably a bit of unrequited Norrington/Elizabeth as well.  
**Warning:** This story contains killing, stealing, lots of angst, an OC, and a non-evil Norrington. Sadly, it probably will not contain any hot, steamy sex scenes.

Chapter Nine: In Which the Endeavour Closes with Her Enemy.

__

O 'twas broadside to broadside  
A long time lay we,  
(Blow high, blow low, and so say we;)  
Until we shot her masts away  
And blew them in the sea,  
(Cruising down along the coast  
Of the High Barbaree.)  


As he had watched the _Black Pearl_ dwindle into the distance through his spyglass, Norrington had very nearly gnashed his teeth in frustration. To have victory so close, only to find it snatched from his grasp by an errant wind… And Sparrow had been making rude gestures at him from the _Pearl'_s poopdeck, too. He was sure of it. The man was prone to waving his arms about, true, but those particular motions had been unmistakable.

By the time she was lost to view, though, he had recovered his composure. Fast she might be, but the _Endeavour_'s broadside had damaged her. Her crew would have to weigh anchor somewhere to fix the damage, or if not, would lose speed considerably as she took on water. Either way, the _Endeavour_ was bound to catch up eventually.

And there would be no running for her then.

"Do you think they'll stop to set things aright, sir, or keep going?" Gillette asked at his elbow, gazing speculatively ahead to where the pirate ship lay invisible beyond the horizon.

"Stop, if I know Sparrow," Norrington mused aloud, following his first officer's gaze out over the empty sea. "He's obsessed with that ship of his. He'll not let her limp along with her sails dragging and her rigging cut up for a moment longer than he has to."

Gillette nodded, considering this. "_L'Île des oiseaux_ is only a few miles north of here," he ventured. "They could lay to there. Fix their damage."

Norrington smiled. "And by the time morning comes, with the speed we're making, we'll be between them and Port Royal."

Gillette's answering smile was more than a little bloodthirsty. He had developed a considerable dislike for pirates after being forced to fight off skeletal hordes of them aboard the _Dauntless_. That sort of experience marked a man. "If I may be so bold sir, how did you know Sparrow would be making for Port Royal now anyway?"

Norrington's smile faltered a bit as he tried, and failed, to come up with a suitable lie. It was not a skill he had much practice with, and anyway, lying to one's subordinates was a poor way to run a ship. Better to tell the truth, if he could do so without implicating Elizabeth. "Just a hunch, Lieutenant. Just a hunch," he answered. "I find it… curious… that young Mr. Turner vanished from Port Royal so soon after his former pirate friend raided the _Golden Dolphin_."

Gillette was a bright young man as well as a good officer, and he caught Norrington's implication immediately. "You think Turner's aboard the _Black Pearl_, sir? Making for home?"

Norrington nodded again, lowering his spyglass (useless at the moment) and tucking it under his arm. "Unfortunately, it is doubtful that he will reach it."

"Doubtful indeed, sir." Gillette smiled grimly, the expression at odds with his round, youthful face. "Bit hard for his wife, I should think." He sniffed. "A man's got no business playing about with pirates when he's got a wife at home, if you ask me, sir."

Norrington found himself nodding without thinking about it. Elizabeth had deserved better than Turner for a husband. He was surprised to this day that Governor Swann had actually acquiesced to it, but the man had always doted on his daughter. "Well, he knew the consequences of his actions when he chose to throw his lot in with the likes of Sparrow. And I suppose we do owe him thanks for bringing the _Black Pearl_ back within range of our guns. Which is where she'll be come morning."

His prediction proved right. Come morning, the _Endeavour_ was several leagues to the west of her previous position, squarely between the_ île des Oiseaux_ and Jamaica. The British colony was a large green mound against the western horizon, so close that the walls of the fort and the sandy strip of the Palisadoes were clearly visible, gleaming in the light of the rising sun. And on the eastern horizon, silhouetted against that rosy disk, which was just beginning to climb away from the edge of the sea, were the topsails of the _Black Pearl_.

The _Endeavour_ crouched hidden behind the shield of one of the small cays scattered about the larger island, and waited patiently as her prey approached. By the time Norrington ordered the men to sail out into the open and confront the pirate ship, it was too late for Sparrow to run. The frigate was already within reach of the man o' war's longer range.

The first broadside whistled harmlessly over and around her, but the second struck her twixt wind and water. Norrington fancied he could hear Sparrow's wails of outrage despite the expanse of water that separated the two vessels.

Her main course was down, and the damage to her hull became clearly evident as the _Endeavour_ bore down on her. Her crew let loose a broadside of their own, chainshot that scythed through the navy vessel's rigging, but the larger ship's momentum carried her forward unchecked to close with the other ship.

"You're mine now, Sparrow," Norrington murmured to himself as the _Black Pearl_'s hull drew ever closer. "Let's see you wriggle out of this one."

^_~

The impact of the broadside was shattering. The deck lurched beneath Jack's feet, nearly unbalancing him, and overheard, the main topsail yardarm disappeared in a hail of splinters, sending canvass crashing to the deck. He could almost hear the _Pearl_'s screams of anguish. _Could_ hear them, in the groans and creaks of stressed, splintering wood.

There was no way out of this, he thought grimly. No way a frigate could take on a ship of the line in an open battle and defeat her. No way to win. Except that there was _always_ a way out, an opportune moment, a chance to turn things your way. There had to be, if only he could think of one. They didn't have to be victorious; they only had to escape. Maybe if they could damage their opponent enough to buy themselves some time…

"Gibbs," he yelled in the general direction of the _Pearl_'s waist, "I want you to double-shot the guns this time. Roundshot and grape. Distract them a little while they try to shoot at us."

Gibbs looked up for a moment, eyes catching his, and he waved a hand in acknowledgement before returning to bawling orders at the men swabbing out and reloading one of the twelve-pounders. Jack wasn't totally sure, but he thought it was one of the ones Will had fixed at Tortuga. The lad's work was certainly being out to the test.

"We can load all the shot we want, Jack," Anamaria said, stepping up to gaze at him over the top of the ship's wheel, "but they'll still have more guns." Her eyes were dark and concerned, and worry had painted lines at their corners. "We can't beat her."

"No," Jack admitted. "We can't. But we can run. Which is why, when she gets close enough to try and board us, we're goin' to triple-shot the guns." He raised a hand to forestall her wince. "I know, I know. I'll pay Will to fix them later. But for now, I want you and Gibbs to load them with roundshot and grape, and canister on top of that. And once we've got them reelin', we'll cut ourselves free from her and fly for the horizon."

Anamaria looked doubtful, but she headed below to relay the order. She looked lopsided, with her right arm strapped to her side under her coat and one sleeve empty, but she hadn't wanted to take the risk of jarring the injured limb in a fight. Hopefully, when the hand-to-hand fighting began, she would still be below.

The _Endeavour_ was close now, well within pistol range, close enough for a tall man to jump the gap between the ships, if he had a running start.

"Stand by to repel boarders," Jack yelled, drawing his own cutlass and relinquishing his spot at the helm. As he made for the leeward rail, where grappling hooks thrown by the _Endeavour_'s men were already landing, Will appeared at his side as if conjured from thin air. He also had his sword drawn, and his face was set in a familiar look of determination. It almost made one feel protected, to have the lad standing by glowering so fiercely, weapon in hand and clearly ready to use it.

"Ready for some fun, love?" Jack asked. The hilt of his cutlass was warm beneath his fingers, metal heated by the sun and the heat of his body. He flourished it, getting re-acquainted with the balance, the heft of it. Adrenaline was singing through his blood already, more intoxicating than rum, charging every nerve to a fever pitch and making his thoughts faster, sharper. Perhaps they were going to get away with this after all.

Will hefted his own blade in silent answer, then added aloud, "You have a twisted idea of fun."

Jack laughed, and it sounded slightly giddy even to him. "You enjoy it to."

Will probably would have denied that, but he never got a chance to. The _Endeavour_'s crew fired one last broadside to clear the way for their boarding party, and the world was washed out by a thunderous wave of iron and sound. A ball passed by Jack so closely that he felt the wind generated by its flight pluck at him, and another, passing by on his right, took Hopkins' head off.

The spray of blood was like a wave breaking, showering down on him silently--all noise had been blotted out by the explosion of the broadside--as Hopkins' headless body fell twitching to the deck. The tattoos on his torso were untouched, still perfect, and the three mermaids that twined lasciviously about one another on his back seemed to writhe as his muscles gave one last spasm.

The _Pearl_ moaned like a woman in extremis, holes opening up in her side, and something clicked in Jack's head. Mirth died, anger vanished, and everything went cold. As it had when he had shot Barbossa, as it had when he'd stabbed that man who'd fired at Anamaria, the world narrowed down to a single goal: _stop this_. 

McTaggart was on his knees beside Hopkins' body--Hopkins the screw-up, Hopkins the joker, with his dirty tattoos and damn comments about sharks--his face twisted with rage and sorrow. Then the _Endeavour_'s men were coming over the rail, and he was surging to his feet to meet them. 

Jack lunged forward at the sailor in front of him without really seeing the man, barely registering it when his cutlass punched through flesh and jarred against bone. He jerked it free mechanically and kept going. Cutlasses weren't really made for stabbing. They were heavier, blunter weapons, intended to shear through flesh like a butcher's cleaver. Which meant that if you hit a man very hard with one, he wouldn't get up. That was good. No one who turned his ship and crew to bloody scraps should ever get up. McTaggart was busy with a marlinspike beside him, clubbing sailors and royal marines down with a berserk fury.

Will, some distant part of his mind not occupied with fighting registered, had jumped up onto one of the boarding planks, sword flashing in the sunlight as he drove a red-coated marine officer back onto the _Endeavour_'s decks. Jack wanted to howl with frustration--didn't the lad know that they were all supposed to stay on the _Pearl_, where they could escape when the final broadside was fired and not be left behind? He somersaulted under some faceless marine's blade and flung himself up onto the plank beside Will, ready to grab his arm and haul him back. And then he saw his old friend the Commodore standing poised to jump the gap over to the _Pearl_.

Jack spared him the trouble. He landed in front of the man in a crouch, blade out, grinning at the surprised expression on his face. "Fancy meeting you here, Commodore," he heard himself saying, as his blade darted out and back, testing the man's guard.

Commodore Norrington did not reply. He merely growled, and raised his own blade to meet Jack's.

He was good. That fancy sword of his wasn't just a decorative mark of rank. And it was a real sword, too, a work of lethal art far more suited to dueling than Jack's cutlass. But he wasn't as good as Barbossa. He wasn't as good as Will.

"You need some practice, Commodore," Jack's mouth said, seemingly without input from his brain, which was engaged in watching Norrington's body move, his blade dance. "I'm told three hours a day does wonders for a man. Especially if he can't get himself a girl." Parry, parry, slash, duck. "Your footwork needs brushing up, you know." He caught the other man's blade against his guard and threw it backwards, following up with a slash at his shoulder. Norrington blocked it just in time, but was forced to take a step backward. And then another. And another.

Jack felt his grin stretching wider, the icy focus of moments ago shifting to a more normal adrenaline high. He had the man at a disadvantage now. This was fun. "One, two, three, four, parry high, now block low. That's it. Try it faster."

"Shut up," Norrington shouted, angry now. He was being played with, and he knew it. The deck behind him was littered with bodies and debris, making backing up a tricky task, and his arm had to be growing tired. His eyes flicked up over Jack's shoulder, and Jack turned just in time to catch the blade of a sailor's knife on his cutlass and turn the stroke. He punched the man full in the face--his rings made a satisfying _crunch_ against the fellow's teeth--and turned back to block Norrington's next blow.

That detached corner of his mind noted McTaggart retreating back over the rail to the _Pearl_, snagging an embattled Twigg off one of the boarding planks as he went. He and Will were the only members of the _Pearl_'s crew aboard the Endeavour now, and Will had fought his way clear to the other side of the ship, where he was now dueling with two naval officers from the high ground of the leeward rail, one hand holding the ratlines for balance.

Norrington deflected his next blow, and Jack tried a low swing at his knees. He jumped clear, and as Jack straightened to follow up with a second, higher slash, the _Pearl_ fired her last, triple-shotted broadside.

The _Endeavour_ lurched as if she'd been struck by a giant's fist, and over Norringon's shoulder, Jack saw Will lose his grasp on the ratlines and fall backwards off the rail into the sea.

Will couldn't swim.

He'd fallen to leeward, not to windward, where he'd have been crushed to death between the two ships, but the weight of his clothes and sword would drag him down, under the _Endeavour_'s keel, and he'd drown there, and the little fish would eat his brown eyes and nibble on his wavy hair, and make homes amid his stupid hero's bones.

Jack turned toward the rail, cutlass lowering slightly as he prepared to drop it and jump, and Norrington reversed his sword and struck him on the temple with its pommel.

There was an explosion of light inside Jack's head, but no pain, only a sort of ringing numbness, and then he was on the deck. He tried to tell his arms to push himself up, his legs to move, because Will was drowning and somebody needed to go get him, but they didn't listen. And then all of the noise and light faded to grey and went away.

^_~

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Cay: A low island, coral reef, or sandbar off the coast of a larger island or mainland.

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Chainshot: Two iron balls connected by a length of chain, used to destroy a ship's rigging and masts (you saw it in the movie, when the _Black Pearl_ was fighting the _Interceptor_).

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Roundshot: Your basic cannonball. Comes in all sizes, from three pounds to thirty-two pounds or more.

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Grape/grapeshot: Small iron balls fired in a cluster like shotgun pellets. Fairly ineffective against stone or wood, but devastating against enemy troops/sailors.

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Double-shot: To double-shot one's guns was to load two rounds worth of ordinance at one time (ex: roundshot and grapeshot). It packed a larger punch, but was bad for the gun. Triple-shotting a gun would severely damage it.

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Canister: lead or iron pellets encased in a container that broke apart on firing or upon impact. Think of it as primitive shrapnel.

^_~

Thank you to all of my reviewers!

Stormy1x2: Thank you! Chibi pirate Jack bouncing angrily in the crows nest is an adorable image *wishes she could draw *, but I must confess that I spent most of the latter half of the chapter focusing on the image of half naked, wet non-chibi Jack ^_~.

Mage Legacy: Thank you! A round of three times three for the Norrington fans! (means everyone cheer in a eighteenth century naval fashion). I didn't think Will would jump into battle against the navy with nary a second thought, after the way he went on about not being a pirate in the movie.

Kaitou Ann: Thank you! *squees at praise * Good song quote, too. *grins * When my Mom and uncles started playing that one at the beach this summer (on guitar, whistle, and banjo, no less), I was nearly overrun with PotC thoughts. *grins wider * My family members can never remember all the words, and end up making up their own verses, like "strap him to a buoy to feed the seagulls."

Soappuppy: Thank you! Oh yeah, I would love to get a handle on Jack. (hey, I'm over eighteen. Johnny Depp could legally date me if he weren't married and old enough to probably think I'm a kid).

Next up, _Chapter Ten: In Which Everyone But Norrington is Unhappy_.

Stay tuned for pain, angst, and misery from everyone but our favourite Commodore. Same pirate time, same pirate channel.


	10. In Which Everyone But Norrington is Unha...

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DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Disney. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. Come on, if it were mine, do you honestly think we would have gotten all the way through the movie without ever seeing Jack shirtless?

****

Posted by: Elspeth (AKA Elspethdixon).

****

Author's Notes: Well, now I've seen PotC for a second time, so I can no longer blame any mistakes or poor characterization on lack familiarity. I'd still appreciate being told about any, though. 

****

Ships: Will/Elizabeth, Jack/Elizabeth, eventual Jack/Will, eventual Norrington/OC. Probably a bit of unrequited Norrington/Elizabeth as well.

****

Warning: This story contains killing, stealing, lots of angst, an OC, and a non-evil Norrington. Sadly, it probably will not contain any hot, steamy sex scenes.

****

Chapter Ten: In Which Everyone But Norrington is Unhappy.

__

"Perhaps he's in some deep ocean drownèd,

or maybe on some battlefield slain.

Perhaps he's taken some fair girl to marry

and his face you'll never see again."

"My true love, he may be drownèd

or on some battlefield slain.

If he's taken some pretty girl to marry

I'll love the girl that marries him."

The effort of holding the _Black Pearl_'s wheel in place against the weight of the water on the rudder made Anamaria's not-quite-healed collarbone ache, but she refused to let anyone else take the helm. Normally, Jack would have been the one steering her, bragging arrogantly about how his genius had gotten them clean away, how he'd had the whole thing planned out hours in advance--though she knew damn well that he pulled a good half of his schemes out of that battered hat of his at the last minute--and how the navy should have know better than to mess with "Captain Jack Sparrow." Then he'd have grinned ingratiatingly at her and added that victorious pirate captains deserved a drink, and would she be a love and go and fetch him one. And she'd have hit him. Or possibly fetched a bottle of rum and thrown it at him. Except that this time, he wasn't about to throw things at.

In those first few moments after the _Pearl_'s crew had fired that last, desperate broadside and begun cutting themselves free of the _Endeavour_, no one had realized that the entire crew wasn't aboard. It was only later, after they had hacked through the ropes holding them close by the other ship with boarding axes, unfurled every last shred of sail to catch the stiff offshore breeze from Jamaica, and beaten the last of the sailors and marines now trapped aboard the _Pearl_ into a defeated little huddle, that everyone noticed who was missing. Hopkins, Tearlach, Matelot. Will Turner. Jack.

Hopkins had been killed by a broadside; Matelot, skewered by a marine's saber. Tearlach had been thrown overboard in the struggle and had been crushed when the ships' hulls had ground together. Jack and Will were simply gone.

"Last I saw Blacksmith an' the Cap'n was over on the navy ship," McTaggart had said. He had been staring down dejectedly at the deck as he spoke, too miserable to look her in the eyes. "If I'd know they were still there…" he couldn't finish the sentence.

"You did fine, McTaggart," Anamaria had told him, trying to smile. "You kept to the code. Jack wouldn't have wanted us to wait around for him. We'd never have gotten away if we had." It was true; the _Endeavour_'s rigging had been too damaged for her to catch the fleeing _Pearl_ once she had a head start, but any delay would have lost them that advantage. Going back now would be throwing it away entirely. Still, the truth had done little to reassure McTaggart and nothing at all to quell the misery in Anamaria's heart.

The _Endeavour_ and Jamaica were dwindling away on the western horizon now, and there was nothing to prevent the _Black Pearl_ from reaching Tortuga in safety, though they would have to set men to working double shifts on the pumps the entire way. Normally, everyone would have been jubilant, smug at having slipped away from those superior navy bastards, though doing so had cost them a third of the _Pearl's_ guns and several pieces of her hull. Instead, the ship felt as if she were once more under a curse.

She even looked a little like she had back then, with holes torn in her sails and knocked through her sides, and her rigging mangled. There was a sad, defeated feel to her, and deep inside Anamaria, the remnants of a little girl who had worked in the cane fields in Haiti and offered rum and tobacco to the _loa_ to help her escape, and feathers and chicken blood to the _guédé_ to punish the French overseers, wondered if perhaps the absence of the _Black Pearl_'s captain had had as much to do with her former decay as the curse had. Without him, she was a ghost ship again.

Anamaria wrapped the fingers of her left hand a little more tightly around the spoke she was gripping and let go with her right hand for a moment to flex her sore shoulder. She was going to have to turn the helm over to Gibbs in a few minutes, but she didn't want to do it just yet. Standing here, with the polished wood of the _Pearl's_ wheel in her hands, she almost felt as if Jack were beside her, hovering jealously as he tended to do whenever someone else handled his darling.

Standing here, she could almost pretend that Jack wasn't back on the _Endeavour, _either dead or in chains awaiting execution. He'd told her, one drunken night at Tortuga after Gibbs had announced that he wanted to die drunk, in bed with three beautiful women, at the age of ninety-eight, and she had confessed that she wanted to die rich and secure, owner of her own ship and her own home that no one could take away from her, that when his time came, he wanted to drown. To "sink down into the sea like yer fallin' into the arms of a beautiful woman an' never come out." Those first weeks after that thing with Barbossa, Jack had gone decidedly creepy on occasion. Especially at night.

Creepy or not, he didn't want to hang, and it made something inside her bleed to sail off and leave him to the noose. 

"Sparrow, you bastard," she whispered, blinking hard, "when I told you to give me a ship, I didn't mean this one."

^_~

The first thing Jack became aware of was the crushing, debilitating pain in his head, boring viciously away at the base of his skull. The second thing was the fact that he wasn't aboard the _Black Pearl, _but on something larger, that swayed and rocked to a different rhythm. Awareness of the shackles on his wrists came as a final and distant third.

He drew one hand up to prod at his aching skull, and the other followed with it, linked to it by a short length of clinking chain. Lovely. At least they'd had the decency to chain his hands in front of him.

He dragged his eyes open to be confronted with nothing but darkness, and it was only the smell of mildewed canvass and damp rope--plus a faint whiff of bilgewater--that told him he had to be in somewhere in the ship's orlop, probably in a store room. All right. _Why_ was he chained up in the orlop?

His abused brain belatedly provided an explanation in the form of a hazy memory of Commodore Norrington's sword hilt swinging toward his face, and a touch of the swelling bruise on his forehead--which produced a dull pulse of pain though his temple and eye socket--confirmed it. They'd been fighting a ship of the line, right? Scattered recollections of smoke and blood and the boom of ships' guns seemed to support this. They'd been fighting Norrington's ship, and Will had…

"Will!"

Jack sat up so quickly that the darkness tilted around him, then promptly fell back down onto the damp deck planking as the bones of his skull did their best to slid apart. The ghosts of a thousand hangovers rose from their graves to hammer on the inside of his head.

"Oh, God," he moaned, fighting the impulse to throw up. Okay, sitting up was bad. Moving was bad. _Breathing_ was bad. What in nine hells had Norrington hit him with?

A sword hilt, the hammer-wielding ghosts reminded him. A sword hilt apparently made of solid lead.

Will. There was something wrong with Will, he reminded himself. What was wrong with Will?

Then, with a sinking, hollow feeling building in the pit of his stomach, he remembered. In place of the empty darkness he once again saw Will wavering and falling backwards off the navy ship's rail, there and then gone. If he were lucky, his lungs would have filled with water before the sharks noticed him. If he were lucky, being dead was better than being undead, peaceful and welcoming instead of empty and devoid of sensation. Maybe Bootstrap would be there, and the two of them could commiserate over the fact that Jack had gotten both of them killed.

Will was dead. It was a painful thought, edged with razor-sharp little daggers of pain (though maybe that was just the headache), and on the heels of it came the realization that he had promised Elizabeth that he would bring Will home to her within the month. It wouldn't be the first promise he had broken, but it was one of the first ones he'd ever sincerely intended to keep. 

Elizabeth was going to be very, very angry at him, he decided muzzily. She would probably slap him. Will would probably have been angry at him too, for dragging him into this, but the dead didn't get angry. Except that he'd recently learned that they did, hadn't he?

Deciding that his head hurt too much to think about it, Jack rolled gingerly onto his side, resting his back against the bulkhead and pillowing his aching head on his chained-together arms. His right sleeve was stiff with blood, mostly dry but still slightly sticky, and the thick, metallic smell of it brought back the nausea that had never completely gone away. Hopkins' blood. Mustn't think about Hopkins, and the way his headless body had flopped on the deck like a landed fish, spraying blood everywhere. If he thought about that, he really would be sick, and Captain Jack Sparrow was never sick.

The orlop might not have been the _Pearl's_ orlop, but it was still inside a ship, and said ship was swaying gently, which probably meant that she wasn't making much headway, but also made for a very comforting rhythm. Thinking hurt, and he wasn't going anywhere in the near future, so Jack closed his eyes and went to sleep, hoping that the memory of Will Turner disappearing over the rail would not follow him there.

^_~

Once again, Norrington had been forced to stand on the _Endeavor_'s quarterdeck and watch the _Black Pearl_ vanish into the distance, uncaught and mocking him with her continued freedom. This time, they couldn't even attempt to pursue her. The _Endeavour_'s bowsprit had been shot away, and there was a crack in the foremast so large that he feared the whole thing would be carried away if they dared to stretch a sail on it. The only thing to do was to limp back into Port Royal for repairs. At least they wouldn't be going back empty handed.

The _Pearl_ might have gotten away, but her amazingly obnoxious captain was securely shut in the _Endeavour_'s orlop with a marine sentry standing guard outside the door. Sparrow's ship and crew might have escaped, but he himself was going to dance the hempen jig in Port Royal, as he should have seven months ago. There would be justice for Mrs. Swann's murdered husband, as well as for an unknown but doubtless vast number of others, and there would be one less pirate in the Caribbean to plague British shipping.

Norrington had finally accomplished something that had been a personal goal of his for some time; he had caught "Captain" Jack Sparrow. That in itself was nearly enough to make the damage to the _Endeavour_ worth it. He hadn't caught Turner, though a brief glimpse of him dueling atop one of the boarding planks during the fight had confirmed his suspicions that the boy had joined Sparrow, but he wasn't quite as unhappy as he probably should have been about that. Returning to Port Royal would not have been nearly as enjoyable if he had had to announce to Elizabeth the moment he arrived in port that he intended to hang her husband.

Instead, he would simply have to tell her that her husband was now very much _persona non grata _in Jamaica, and that he probably wouldn't be coming back any time soon. That wouldn't exactly be fun either, but at least he wouldn't have to face Elizabeth every day for the rest of their lives with her husband's death--deserved or not--on his hands.

Once the _Black Pearl_ had vanished from the horizon and the jury-rigged repairs to the _Endeavour_ were well underway, and the necessary report to the Admiralty written (plus an extra copy for Governor Swann, out of courtesy), Norrington decided it was time to look in on his prisoner.

When he stepped through the entrance of the orlop, accompanied by two more marines and by the midshipman Billings, who bore a candle in one hand, Sparrow was half-curled against the far bulkhead, either unconscious or feigning sleep. He looked a lot smaller huddled on the deck planks than he had during the fight, Norrington noted.

Mr. Billings strode across the orlop and fetched Sparrow a violent kick in the ribs, eliciting a sort of grunting moan from the man. He stirred, bringing his shackled arms up as a shield, and Norrington was across the room in two steps, grabbing Billings by the elbow and hauling him back.

"Mr. Billings," he barked, "you are an officer in His Majesty's navy, and British naval officers to not strike prisoners, no matter how much they may deserve it. Nor do they kick them."

"I always said you were an honourable man, Commodore," Sparrow announced, somewhat groggily. He blinked several times at the candle in Billings' hand, eyes slowly focusing on the pair of officers. In the dim candlelight he looked like some form of spectre, face hollowed out by the flickering shadows while glimmers of light caught in the beads and trash he wore in his hair. There was a large bruise on his forehead, already darkening and spreading down into what was going to be a spectacular black eye.

"On your feet, Mr. Sparrow, if you please," Norrington ordered.

"I think I like it here better." One hand indicated the floor around him, the gesture made unusually understated by the shackles that limited his movement. "It's nice an' comfy here."

"Let me rephrase that," Norrington said tightly, fighting irritation. "Get up. Now. That is not a request."

"Can't I just not, and we can pretend like I have?" Sparrow's voice was laced with false plaintiveness, like a man pleading for a favour. "If I get up, I'm goin' to be sick, savvy?"

Norrington's battle against irritation, which had been going poorly to begin with, was lost. "Stop malingering and stand up, you wretch," he snapped. "I didn't hit you that hard."

Sparrow levered himself to a sitting position with his arms and rested a hand against the wall to pull himself upright. Once on his feet he stood swaying for a moment, then fell heavily to his knees and threw up.

He might have been concussed, but his aim was perfect. The contents of his stomach landed squarely on Norrington's polished black boots.

Norrington jumped back--too late, unfortunately--and tried to repress a strangled sound of disgust. He didn't quite succeed. "Sparrow," he announced, keeping his voice even with a supreme effort of will, "I hate you. I have hated you since the first moment I met you, and will continue to do so until that happy hour when the noose finally closes about your grimy, verminous neck."

"I did warn you, you know," Sparrow mumbled, still on his knees. The comment was followed by something inaudible but almost certainly uncomplimentary. Norrington felt vaguely guilty, for some odd reason. Perhaps he had hit the man a bit harder than he had intended. His anger must have gotten the better of him. He chose to ignore the insolent remark, and laid a warning hand on Billings' shoulder as the midshipman prepared to kick Sparrow again. The lad subsided, somewhat guiltily.

"I may have misjudged the force of my blow," Norrington admitted. "You may remain seated."

"Misjudged my-" Sparrow cut the phrase off and sagged back against the bulkhead, legs bent in front of him. He rested his manacled arms on his knees and regarded Norrington over them. "What do you want?" he asked, sounding considerably more subdued than usual, almost bored. "Come to drag me on deck and hoist me up on a yard arm for a short drop an' a sudden stop?"

"You'll hang in Port Royal," Norrington told him, taking a certain amount of pleasure in pronouncing the words, though he knew it was unworthy of him. "After a trial. I mean to see justice done for Mrs. Swann's husband."

"It's Mrs. Turner now," Sparrow said tiredly, as if to a dull child, "and I never knew you liked him all that much."

"Not Turner," Norrington half-snapped, exasperation washing away any of the remorse he might have felt over injuring the man. "If he chooses to throw his future away dashing about after you, that's his own fault. Robert Swann. The man you killed aboard the _Golden Dolphin_."

Sparrow blinked at him. "Who?" He shook his head, then winced. "I've killed a lot of people. I'm an evil pirate, remember. My head hurts," he added. "Go away." He leaned his head back against the boards behind him and closed his eyes, the opened them again. "Wait a minute, Swann?"

"The Governor's nephew," Norrington informed him icily. He beckoned to Mr. Billings and the two marines, who had spent the past few minutes standing casually by the door, exuding menace. This conversation had not been nearly as satisfying as he had expected. Nothing involving Sparrow ever went right. The man was a walking curse. "There shall be no pardons or last minute rescues this time, Mr. Sparrow," he informed him. "You picked the wrong victim to murder." He left then, taking the candle with him and laving Sparrow behind in the dark, to contemplate his fate.

^_~

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Orlop: The lowest deck on a four-deck ship, directly over the hold, generally dived up into storerooms and such. The midshipmen's quarters were also frequently located down there.

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Foremast: On a three-masted ship, the mast farthest forward (hence the name).

Next up, _Chapter Eleven: In Which Elizabeth Goes for a Walk on the Strand_.

Anamaria is guilt-stricken and miserable, Jack is concussed and miserable, and somewhere offscreen, Will is wet and miserable. Unless he truly has joined his father on the ocean floor, in which case he's simply wet and dead. Will things ever improve for our beleaguered heroes? Stay tuned for another thrillingly melodramatic chapter of "As the Caribbean Turns."

Thank you to all my reviewers!

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Jenni: Thank you! Chapter Eleven should be out in a couple of days, but later updates may be sporadic (I'm going to Ireland for four months, and don't know what my internet access will be like).

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Jehan's Muse: Thank you! Norrington gets to feel bad later. At the moment, his luck is in. As for poor Hopkins--I actually do feel sort of bad about decapitating him with a piece of roundshot, but it just seemed to happen. I plan to resurrect him in an original story of mine later, along with his partner-in-crime McTaggart.

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Mirth: Thank you! I'm glad you're enjoying the storyline and that my characterization is coming across as fairly decent. Sadly, my updating speed is going to take a major hit after this chapter, as I'm about to leave to spend a semester at the University of Cork, and must wait to have my laptop shipped to me (also, I've no clue what my internet access will be like or even if I'll have any).

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ballerina-on-fire: Thank you! I loved shirtless!Jack as well. That was sort of the entire purpose of the second half of that chapter--me typing and drooling. Thanks for the pointers as well (so Johnny Depp isn't married? There's still hope!!! I assumed kids=married). Sadly, I'll be overseas when the Mexico movie comes out.

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EnglishMystic & Seph: Thank you! Well, here's the next update, though I realize it assuages none of y'all's worries about Will. I'll try to get chapter eleven out before I leave for Ireland and take care of that plot thread. * grins* No, I didn't make the nautical terms up--I got them all from my extensive reading of historical fiction. I think there may be a few anachronisms in there, but hey, the movie had tons of them.

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Shellie Rae: Thank you! Ah, chapter four--that would be the one written at Virginia Beach under the influence of far too much Jimmy Buffet music. I had fun with that one. The earrings idea just sort of sprang out of nowhere. 


	11. In Which Elizabeth Goes for a Walk on th...

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DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Disney. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. Come on, if it were mine, do you honestly think we would have gotten all the way through the movie without ever seeing Jack shirtless?

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Posted by: Elspeth (AKA Elspethdixon).  
**Author's Notes:** This is the last post from me for the time being--I'm going to Ireland tonight, and once there I'll have to wait for my parents to ship my laptop (which should get _here_ around September 1st) to me, so it ought to be a good two weeks before I can get another post out.   
**Ships:** Will/Elizabeth, Jack/Elizabeth, eventual Jack/Will, eventual Norrington/OC. Probably a bit of unrequited Norrington/Elizabeth as well.  
**Warning:** This story contains killing, stealing, lots of angst, an OC, and a non-evil Norrington. Sadly, it probably will not contain any hot, steamy sex scenes.

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Chapter Eleven: In Which Elizabeth Goes for a Walk on the Strand.

__

As I was a walking down in Stokes Bay  
I met a drowned sailor on the beach as he lay  
And as I drew nigh him, it put me to a stand.,  
When I knew it was my own true Love  
By the marks upon his hand.

The guns began firing early that morning, as Elizabeth, her father, and their guests sat down to breakfast. The sound rumbled at the edge of her hearing like distant thunder, too sustained and fast to simply be some navy ship engaging in a bit of gunnery practice. Fear seeped like ice water into her stomach as she strained her ears to catch the noise, knowing almost instinctively that it had to be a battle of some kind. She fairly twitched with the desire to leap up from the table and run to one of the upstairs windows for a look at the harbour and the sea beyond. It was all she could do to smile pleasantly across the table at Colonel and Mrs. Jacobson and their daughter Julia, and she had a feeling that she would be less than successful at fulfilling her duties as hostess for the remainder of the meal. 

The others all seemed to ignore the distant gunfire, save for a comment by the Colonel that one of the garrison's big men o' war must be exercising its guns, and would Mrs. Swann please pass the butter. Mary Rose obliged, but her eyes held a distant, listening look, as if her mind, too, was out with those unseen battling ships.

There was no reason why it _had_ to be the _Endeavour_ and the _Pearl_. Perhaps the navy had caught some smuggler, or one of the garrison's other ships had squared off with some other pirate vessel, or the French or Spanish were attacking. It could even be the Dutch, sailing north from Aruba to attack Port Royal. Stranger things had happened. If skeletons could walk, there was no reason why the Dutch couldn't be attacking Jamaica.

Mary Rose caught Elizabeth's eyes over her untouched plate and seemed about to speak to her, but then turned and addressed Julia Jacobson instead. Her cousin had avoided her assiduously ever since their encounter on the beach, and on the rare occasions when they had spoken, it had been of inconsequential things; the weather, dresses, the colour of embroidery floss, never any topic that might lead back to a mention of Robert, Jack, or Will. Mary Rose seemed willing to pretend that the entire conversation on the beach had never taken place, and Elizabeth had pretended right alongside her. Still, she had caught the other woman giving her hard, thoughtful glances when she thought herself unobserved. She waited now for some comment about the distant artillery fire, some gentle suggestion that it might be the _Endeavour_, accompanied by a hopeful prediction of Norrington's victory, but none came.

The end of the meal could not come soon enough. The second the plates were cleared, she smiled a farewell at the Jacobsons, dodged a question from Mrs. Jacobson as to why on earth her husband wasn't back yet (scandalous, his going off and leaving her like that), and dredged up some sort of passable excuse to leave. She wasn't exactly sure what she said, but it must have been acceptable, because no one objected or tried to follow her.

By the time she reached her now-familiar observation point on the Palisadoes, the battle had been over for nearly an hour, and only a single ship remained out to the east, making slowly for the mouth of the harbour. Slowly, because half her rigging appeared to have been shot away. She was too far out, and too damaged, for Elizabeth to be certain of her identity, but at least she wasn't the _Black Pearl_. That ship, Elizabeth would have known anywhere.

Only one ship. Where was the other? Had she escaped, or been sunk? She hadn't blown up--that would have left a cloud of smoke behind to trail over the water, not to mention that the sound of the explosion would have been clearly audible even from her father's house.

Elizabeth's nervous pacing had carried her nearly to Gallows Point when she caught sight of something that brought both pacing and musings to an end. Protruding from behind one of the rocks that littered this end of the strand was a human hand.

It lay palm upright on the sand, completely motionless, and Elizabeth nearly screamed as she realized what it was. There was a dead body behind that rock. A dead, drowned body. Either that, or the hand was unattached, which was somehow an even more disgusting thought.

Though she was strongly tempted to simply run screaming back home and leave the corpse to someone else, morbid curiosity forced her closer. It was probably some sailor off of one of the two fighting ships, which meant that it couldn't have been here long. Hopefully, the crabs hadn't been at it yet.

That thought almost made her turn back again--she had always had a horror of the big, pale land crabs that came scuttling down to the beaches at low tide--but by then she was close enough to see the hand clearly. It was a big hand, with short, broken nails, and there was a perfectly straight, pink scar right across the middle of the palm. Only two men in the Caribbean had scars like that.

"Will!" she shrieked, her previous horror increasing tenfold. She covered the rest of the distance to the rock at a dead run, and threw herself down in the sand on the other side of it.

He lay face down in the sand, left arm outstretched in front of him, as if reaching for something. His right arm was still clinging to the piece of wood that must have carried him ashore. He was pale, his eyes closed, and his skin, when she touched it, was cold and wet.

It didn't occur to Elizabeth to wonder what Will was doing washed ashore on the Palisadoes Straights. The only thing that mattered was that he was here, and that he couldn't possibly be dead. He _couldn't_ be dead. It wasn't fair. God wouldn't do that to her.

"Will." She shook one bonelessly limp shoulder, getting her fingers wet and sandy in the process. "Oh God, Will, don't be dead, don't be dead." She bent over his motionless form, tears stinging in her eyes, and heard herself pleading with him to wake up, to be alive, telling him that she would never, ever forgive him for leaving her like this if he didn't wake up right now.

She was completely unprepared for it when he actually did.

The limp body that she was clutching to her chest shook with a sudden spasm of coughing, and she was so surprised that she almost let go. Will pulled away from her to spit salt water into the sand, streams of it dripping from his nose and mouth, and then turned to look up at her, blinking in confusion.

"Elizabeth? What are you--"

She didn't give him a chance to finish. She flung both arms around him and buried her head in his shoulder, holding him as tightly as she could. "I thought you were dead," she whispered, squeezing her eyes closed against more tears. "I thought you were dead."

Will's arms came up around her shoulders and he held onto her in return, one hand stroking her hair. "I'm fine. Really. I promise." Then he seemed to become aware of his surroundings for the first time, and asked, "Elizabeth, what am I doing here?"

She opened her eyes again, caught off guard. "Ah, I don't know," she admitted. "I… I found you. On the beach. I thought you had drowned." Her voice nearly broke again over the words.

"I fell off the boat," Will said softly, remembering. "There was an explosion, and everything shook, and I went overboard, so I… I think I tried to swim for shore." He pulled back from her slightly, eyes suddenly wide. "My God, the _Pearl_."

"She gone," Elizabeth answered. "I think she might have escaped." She refused to consider any other possibilities. The _Black Pearl_ could not possibly have sunk. "What happened? Were you attacked?" Guilt began to seep in around the edges of her relief.

"A British ship of the line ambushed us yesterday," he told her. "We got away, but they caught up to us again this morning. We closed with her, and they tried to board us, and Jack and I got into a sword fight with some of her officers." He looked away suddenly, down at the sand. "I think I killed some of them. I guess I really am a pirate now. I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry. It's… It's my fault. If it weren't for Mary Rose and I, Norrington would never have known where you were."

Will stared at her blankly. "Who's Mary Rose?"

It wasn't until then that she realized just how much of the recent events in Port Royal Will had missed. He didn't know about the _Golden Dolphin_'s arrival, or Robert's death, or Mary Rose's accusations. He probably didn't even know that those pearl earrings had been stolen. On the heels of that realization came one that the two of them were damp, bedraggled, and sitting on the sand while the tide crept slowly up the beach toward them.

"We need to get inside somewhere," she said, instead of answering. "You need dry clothes, and, and I don't know what else. Are you hurt?"

Will shook his head. "I don't think so. You're right," he added. "We can't just sit here until somebody comes and finds us. I'm supposed to be… God, where _am_ I supposed to be?"

"I think I told father Barbados," she said, "or maybe Haiti. Or both. I can't remember."

"Well, somewhere that's not here. And once Norrington gets back to Port Royal, everyone will know I've been with Jack, been _fighting the Royal Navy_ with Jack, and someone will probably come and arrest me."

Elizabeth shook her head, almost angrily. "No one is arresting you. We won't tell anyone you're here. We can…" she searched her memory for some out-of-the way place for him to hole up in, some place no one but the two of them would think of going. "We can go to the forge. Nobody's been by there in weeks, because they all know you're gone."

Will didn't argue. The mere thought of a fire and dry clothes was probably enough to outweigh any other concerns he had. "We should probably stand up now," he suggested.

It turned out to be a difficult task. Will was lying halfway in her lap, her damp-and-getting damper skirts tangled about both of them, and the two of them had to untangle themselves before they could do anything else. Elizabeth climbed to her feet, attempted, without much success, to shake some of the water and sand out of her skirts, and reached down to give Will a hand up.

She had to pull harder than she expected to, and once on his feet, Will swayed slightly, grabbing onto her shoulder for balance. "I'm fine. I'm fine," he gasped, before she could say anything. "Just give me a minute."

She suppressed the desire to snap that he obviously wasn't fine--he'd practically drowned hadn't he?--and settled for leaning over to put an arm around him.

The two of them made their way slowly back down the beach toward the town, and Elizabeth spent the entire time hoping desperately that no one would take note of them and fighting the desire to skulk in alleyways. She felt as if a hundred pairs of eyes were boring into her, and expected any second to hear a voice calling her name.

"Slow down," Will whispered. "If we walk too fast, it will look suspicious."

"We already look suspicious," she whispered back. "We're both of us soaking wet!"

"Maybe no one will notice," he suggested hopefully.

It seemed to take hours for them to reach the smithy, though it couldn't have been more than twenty minutes altogether. Elizabeth went limp with relief when the door finally closed behind them, and Will released her arm and sagged onto one of the benches. He still looked rather pale, she noted worriedly.

He tried a smile. "It's funny. Usually, I'm the one people cling onto for balance." He stopped smiling, and stared down at his hands with a small frown. "I hope Jack's alright."

It was so close to what Elizabeth had been thinking that she couldn't help smiling ever so slightly, despite her fear and worry. "He's probably halfway to Tortuga by now, safe on the _Pearl_. 'Those who fall behind, get left behind,' remember." She crossed the room to the chest where Will stored his spare clothing--in an attempt to dodge the Governor's disapproval, he'd taken to changing his clothes before returning home from the forge--and pulled out a shirt and breeches. "Here, get out of that wet stuff and put these on." She pressed the dry clothes into his hands and surveyed her own damp and newly water-stained gown with resignation. "I wish I could do the same. I don't think this dress is ever going to recover."

Will stripped out of his torn, damp shirt and pitched it into a corner. The wet breeches followed, landing atop the shirt with surprising accuracy. Elizabeth stepped forward to help him into the dry garments, more as an excuse to touch him than anything else. She had so nearly lost him. For a few horrible moments, she had thought that she _had_ lost him. 

Will's skin still felt chilled as she ran her fingers over it, the hard muscle beneath knotted tightly. There were a scattering of bruises across his ribs and shoulders, and a long, straight burn on his right forearm. She bent and kissed it before fastening the button at his cuff.

"What's this from?"

"I brushed my arm against one of the guns, sponging it out," Will half-explained. He had abandoned any attempt to lace the front of his shirt and was now cupping her face with his free hand. His fingers were cold, but Elizabeth didn't care; she leaned into his touch anyway. 

"Elizabeth-" Will began. He never got to finish the sentence. No sooner had he started to speak than a single gunshot sounded from the fort. A navy ship had come in.

They broke apart. "It must be the _Endeavour_," Elizabeth said, though it didn't really need pointing out. I should go down and see what's happened."

Will looked about to protest for a moment, then nodded. "Come right back as soon as you find out," he said instead. His eyes found hers, and they held the same cold, frightened unease that lay in the bottom of her stomach. "If he won… if he's taken any prisoners…"

Elizabeth shook her head, not wanting to voice that fear aloud. In the back of her mind hung Mary Rose's voice, saying, _"He'll hang as a pirate when the Commodore catches him, him and all his crew. Someday soon _that_ is going to be Jack Sparrow, and serve him right!"_

The walk to the harbour seemed even longer than the walk to the forge had been.

^_~ 

Thank you to all my reviewers!

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Soappuppy, Shellie Rae & Diana: Thank you! Don't worry, I'm not going to stop; there's just going to be a brief break while I go to Ireland (leaving for the airport in two hours) and wait for my laptop to be shipped out to me. I promise, even if I have to write longhand and transcribe stuff in an internet café, it's not going to take four months for chapter twelve to come out (four months is how long it's gonna be before I'm back on US soil).

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kandra: Thank you! By "wish I understand what you write about, sometimes" do you mean that you want to know more about the 1700s, or that some of the fic is confusing (or both)? If it's the former, try the 900s (history) and 300s (where military stuff is) sections of the library ^_^. If the latter, much apologies for being confusing. You were right about Will not really being dead. As for Jack, well… you'll just have to wait and see. * grins* I know what you mean about looking for PotC trios. I had the maniacal urge to read me some Jack/Elizabeth/Will as soon as I saw that "Our place is between you and Jack" scene in the movie.

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Calendar: Thank you! Well, Will got away. I couldn't have them both get away just yet, though--it would remove the opportunity for people to angst and suffer. As for Mary Rose, well, Jack did off her husband. She's got a reason to be vengeful where he's concerned.

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i.c.k.: Thank you! I try to work hard on characterization--though it's hard to keep Mary Rose from sounding like a bitch or Norrington from sounding like something from a ripoff of a Horatio Hornblower novel.

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Eledhwen: Thank you! Will, as you can see, is sort of safe at the moment. ^_^ Not on the _Endeavour_, but not communing with Bootstrap on the sea floor, either.

^_~

Next up, _Chapter Twelve: In Which Norrington Returns Triumphant, and Elizabeth and Will Face a Difficult Decision._

Obviously, Will isn't dead, though he was wet (and a braver, better author would have made use of that and delivered a nice het lemon somewhere in there). Jack's fate, on the other hand, is still up in the air. As is Jack, if his luck doesn't change at some point in the near future.


	12. In Which Norrington Returns Triumphant a...

**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Disney. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. Come on, if it were mine, do you honestly think we would have gotten all the way through the movie without ever seeing Jack shirtless?  
**Posted By:** Elspeth, AKA Elspethdixon  
**Author's Notes:** The twelfth chapter is here, thanks to UCC's computer lab (and no thanks to my evil blue floppy disk, which nearly ate half of it). Future chapters will probably be out more quickly, as my laptop is due to arrive in Ireland shortly.  
**Ships:** Will/Elizabeth, Jack/Elizabeth, eventual Jack/Will, eventual Norrington/OC. Probably a bit of unrequited Norrington/Elizabeth as well.  
**Warning:** This story contains killing, stealing, lots of angst, an OC, and a non-evil Norrington. Sadly, it probably will not contain any hot, steamy sex scenes.  
  
**Chapter Twelve: In Which Norrington Returns Triumphant and Elizabeth and Will Face a Difficult Decision.**  
  
_What hills, what hills are these, my love  
these hills so fair and high?  
These are the hills of heaven, my love,  
and not for you and I._  
  
Mary Rose had been on edge ever since the sound of the sea battle had become audible during breakfast, and when the fort's cannon sounded, announcing the arrival of a navy ship, she hurried down to the harbour faster than was perhaps seemly. Governor Swann just barely managed to catch the carriage before it left. She would have felt a bit guilty had he missed it—since it was, after all, his carriage, and not hers.  
  
She wondered, as the wheels clattered jouncingly over the cobblestones—the suspension on Governor Swann's carriage wasn't quite up to London standards—where Elizabeth was. She would have expected the other woman to be first into the carriage, judging by her distraction during breakfast. Mrs. Turner had an even greater interest in the outcome of Commodore Norrington's expedition than she herself had, if Mary Rose's suspicions were right. Then again, perhaps she was worried that rushing down to the harbour to make sure that her pirate lover hadn't been caught would arouse suspicion.  
  
Pirate lover. Everything kept circling back to that. Was it true? Had Elizabeth really… Mary Rose was decidedly not looking forward to Will Turner's return to Port Royal. She had kept silent before the governor about his daughter's possible affair, not wanting to stir up trouble in a household she was really only present in on sufferance, but she could not in good conscience keep the secret from the other woman's husband, once she met him.  
  
Watching the governor's kind face from across the carriage, she wondered what his son-in-law would be like. She had heard that Elizabeth had married beneath her, to a tradesman, and had a suspicion that this Will Turner had been involved in something very scandalous prior to his marriage, if the bits of whispered comments she had heard were anything to go by. Exactly what it had been, she still wasn't sure.  
  
Perhaps there was a trend here. Perhaps Elizabeth had a taste for low company. Perhaps it was none of her business.  
  
Still, thinking about it diverted her mind from wondering whether the Commodore was all right and if he'd been successful.  
  
Her worries clamoured all the louder when Governor Swann helped her down from the carriage and she looked up to see the _Endeavour_ tying up at the dock, one mast gone and sails riddled with holes. The gold trim that had gleamed so brightly when the ship had sailed out had been splintered away, and the freshly painted hull was battered and scarred, as if a giant fist had slammed into her. It was eerily reminiscent of the _Golden Dolphin_'s appearance a month ago.  
  
Then she saw Commodore Norrington and several other naval officers standing on the dock and something inside her chest that had been tight eased. The young man at his side had a bandage on his face and one arm in a sling, but the Commodore himself was unharmed. She wasn't sure why that should be important to her, but it was. She had, in a way, been the one to send him out on this campaign? expedition? Whatever it was, if it had lead to his death, she would have felt partly responsible.  
  
"Governor, Mrs. Swann," Commodore Norrington nodded respectfully to them, smiling slightly. "I believe I told you when I left that I intended to return with Sparrow and his crew in chains. His crew, I fear, fled rather than face us, but I was able to fulfil part of my promise." He indicated the gangplank of the _Endeavour_, down which two royal marines were hauling a third man, imprisoned between them with shackles hanging from his wrists. Dark hair fell in long elf-locks around his face, some of them strung with beads or bits of metal, giving him a wild, unkempt look.  
  
"It's him." The words escaped before Mary Rose even felt them on her lips. "Oh merciful heavens, it's him." The pirate looked less fearsome now that he was safely chained and guarded, but he was unmistakably the same man she had seen aboard the _Golden Dolphin_. For a moment, she seemed to see again that sword sliding so smoothly into Robert's flesh, the blood staining his shirt and waistcoat. Then it was gone, and Sparrow was once more merely a rather grimy looking man in chains.  
  
Her attention was wrenched away from the sinister figure of her husband's killer by the sound of hurried footsteps, and she turned to see Elizabeth emerging into the open from a side street, moving with an almost unseemly quickness.  
  
"You are to be congratulated, Commodore…" Governor Swann's voice trailed off as he, too, turned to see Elizabeth, who had stopped dead several feet away, eyes wide and one hand at her throat as if her air had suddenly been snatched away. The skirts of her gown were damp about the hemline, pale green fabric darkened to emerald, and her hair, which had been swept up atop her head at breakfast, was beginning to slide down so that wisps of it hung about her face and trailed down her neck. "Elizabeth! What on earth…"  
  
Elizabeth shook her head silently, less an answer to his question than a sort of mute denial of what lay before her. Then she seemed to master herself, summoning up a slightly lukewarm smile for her father. "I was on the beach when the cannon sounded, taking a morning walk. I came running when I heard it, and tripped." She smiled again, self-deprecatingly. "I should learn to be more careful." All the time she spoke, her eyes remained fixed on Sparrow, but the governor did not seem to notice. Perhaps Mary Rose only did because she was expecting it.  
  
"My dear," the governor began, shaking his head slightly. He trailed off again and looked to Commodore Norrington. "The Commodore," he tried again, "has captured the captain of the ship that attacked the _Golden Dolphin_. I'm afraid you may be… rather upset… by the necessary sentence awaiting him, but I assure you, it _is_ necessary."  
  
Elizabeth nodded slightly, eyes still not leaving Sparrow. Mary Rose followed her gaze back to the man, trying to see what it was about him that the other woman could possibly find appealing. He didn't look very appealing at the moment, as he stood, swaying slightly, between the two marines, who appeared to have been chosen based on the fact that both were significantly larger than he was. His coat was faded, both his skin and his clothing were grimy, and was that a _bone_ knotted into his hair on the right side of his face? She supposed the various ornaments provided a certain gaudy, magpie glitter, and those dark, painted eyes gave him what some might call an air of mystery (though rather less of one than usual at the moment, since one was currently encircled by bruises as well as kohl) but regardless of how pretty his eyes were or were not, he was still a vicious criminal, and Elizabeth a married woman.  
  
"Mrs. Turner," Commodore Norrington had stepped forward now, "I'm afraid I have something rather unpleasant to tell you. You as well, governor." Some of the quiet pleasure of a moment ago seemed to go out of his face. "I'm afraid Mr. Turner was among the pirates aboard Mr. Sparrow's ship." He stared intently at Elizabeth as he said this, sounding both regretful and disapproving. "My first officer, Lieutenant Gillette, engaged him during the fight, though he was unfortunately unable to capture him. I have been forced to put out a warrant for his arrest, on the occasion of his ever returning to Port Royal."  
  
Elizabeth stepped back a pace, face a perfect picture of shock and dismay. "Will would never…" she gasped out, then fell silent, eyes shining with unshed tears. "Are you sure?"  
  
"Quite sure. I'm sorry, ma'am."  
  
Mary Rose could feel her eyebrows rising at the unexpected revelation. Elizabeth's husband, the absent Mr. Turner, was a pirate as well? The "unsuitable" young man whom everyone said was a blacksmith? And he had been sailing with Sparrow? No wonder Elizabeth had been so upset at the thought of the man and his crew being caught and hung. It occurred to her, suddenly, to wonder if Mr. Turner knew that he had been sailing with his wife's lover. Then her mind seized on the more important question of _why on earth_ the governor's son-in-law would run off to join a pirate ship.  
  
"He _what_?" Governor Swann demanded. "You told me he'd gone to Barbados to do some work on commission!" His face began to turn red. "Elizabeth!"  
  
Elizabeth buried her face in her hands like the tragic heroine of a play and dissolved into tears. "He told me it was a job for a rich planter," she sobbed. "He, he told me…" she sobbed again, harder this time. "He _lied_ to me!"  
  
Commodore Norrington was regarding her with a decidedly odd expression, lips curving slightly, almost as if he were… amused? Mary Rose turned to look at him, eyes meeting his for a moment, and saw her own sudden suspicions echoed there. _She's faking it_. Either she wasn't really as grief-stricken over Mr. Turner's betrayal as she seemed, or she already knew something about it.  
  
Sparrow, meanwhile, was staring steadily at Elizabeth as if no one else around him—not Commodore Norrington, not the governor, not even the beefy royal marines flanking him—existed. He had quite obviously been listening to every word they said, and now he stepped forward a pace, pulling one shoulder from the left-hand marine's grasp. "Ah, actually, about Will," he began. The officer at Commodore Norrington's elbow wheeled on him.  
  
"You keep your mouth shut, pirate." He pointed a threatening finger at the man, managing to look forceful despite the sling incapacitating his right arm. "You're going straight to jail, and there'll be no pardons or last minute escapes this time."  
  
"I wasn't talkin' to you," Sparrow informed him. He turned back to Elizabeth and tried to take another step forward, but the two marines dragged him back, one hauling on his arm and the other grabbing him by the hair and yanking his head backwards. Mary Rose's palms crawled in sympathy. There was no telling how filthy those matted locks were.  
  
Sparrow, face contorted with pain, sagged slightly in his guards' grasp. "Watch the head," he hissed, "Watch the head." Beside the governor, Elizabeth started forward a step, incapacitating grief apparently forgotten.  
  
"Stop it!" Her voice was low but forceful, and tears glittered in her eyes. There were, however, a small part of Mary Rose's mind couldn't help but note, no tear tracks on her face. Until two drops of moisture slid from the corners of her narrowed eyes and began making their way down her cheeks.  
  
"Mr. Billings," Commodore Norrington ordered, stepping into Elizabeth's line of sight and blocking off her view of Sparrow, "Have Johnson and Markham escort Mr. Sparrow to his cell. And make sure," he added, giving the young man a hard look, "that he doesn't 'fall down the steps' on the way there." He turned back to Elizabeth. "Mrs. Turner, I know you're upset. Perhaps your father should take you home." He looked questioningly at Governor Swann.  
  
The Governor nodded. "I think the Commodore is right. We've all had a lot of shocks today, and perhaps the best thing to do would be to go somewhere quiet and rest."  
  
The two royal marines, under the direction of Mr. Billings, began marching a protesting Sparrow forcibly in the direction of a sturdily built structure that must have been the town jail. "Would you pearls of the King's navy mind lettin' go of my hair?" he was wheedling as they dragged him off. "Please? I'll be good, on my honour as a gen'leman an' all that. Just let me talk to Elizabeth. Ow! Let go does _not_ mean pull harder…"  
  
Mary Rose could help sighing in relief as the heavy door slammed shut behind him, its loud thud echoing with a comforting finality. Elizabeth honestly was crying now, as she allowed her father to usher her into the carriage. Mary rose felt like tears herself for some reason. The intense emotional drama she had just played witness to had been captivating, in a horrible, embarrassing way, but now that it was mostly over, her own memories of Robert's death were bubbling up from the small, dark part of her mind where she had tried to lock them away. The sight of Jack Sparrow had set them loose again.  
  
Commodore Norrington placed a tentative hand on her arm. "Mrs. Swann? Are you all right?"  
  
She tried to smile up at him. "Oh, yes, quite all right. I just… seeing that man, it brings it all back."  
  
Concerned blue eyes regarded her face intently. "Perhaps you had better go home as well," he suggested. "May I assist you into the carriage?"  
  
She accepted his hand up, taking a sort of comfort in the touch even though she didn't really need the assistance. At times it seemed as if all stability had fled from the world upon Robert's death, and it was nice to have it back for a moment, if only in the form of some added balance mounting the steps to a carriage.  
  
The Commodore saw her settled on the brocaded silk of the seat, then stepped away to exchange some low, hurried words with the governor, casting one brief glance back in her direction as he went. Beside Mary Rose, Elizabeth sniffed faintly, and rubbed at her eyes with one hand. Somehow, Mary Rose wasn't surprised to note that she didn't have a handkerchief. She pulled out her own and handed it over, not looking at the other woman.  
  
"Which one are you crying for?" she asked. It came out sounding more accusing than she had initially meant. Shamelessly as she may have behaved, Elizabeth did have the right to cry, after learning that her husband had abandoned her and that her lover was now slated to be hung. Granted, she had been unfaithful to said husband, and said lover more than deserved his upcoming fate, but it still must have been a tremendous shock.  
  
Elizabeth glared at her. "It's not what you think," she spat. "Jack and I, we never-" she cut herself off, looking away. "It's not like that."  
  
Mary Rose blinked, caught off guard by this not entirely convincing denial. "You're not, not…" she faltered, searching for a word, "consorting, with him?"  
  
Elizabeth continued to look away, past Mary Rose and through the window of the carriage at Governor Swann and Commodore Norrington. "Would it make any difference if I were?" she asked, her voice still angry but her face almost sad. "I mean, to anyone but us. Both of them," she added, reaching for the door on the other side of the compartment. "I'm crying for both of them. Excuse me, please. I think I need to be alone now." She opened the door and slipped out, leaving Commodore Norrington and the governor still conversing on the other side of the vehicle and Mary Rose staring after her in confusion.  
  
If Elizabeth _wasn't_ having an affair with Sparrow, why was she so concerned about the man? And if she wasn't betraying her husband with a depraved pirate, why had he left her? Then again, if he _had_ been leaving her over an affair, why would he leave with the man she'd betrayed him with? Mary Rose desperately wished that someone would explain to her precisely what was going on here. 

^_~

  
  
Will surveyed the rack of swords as he paced back and forth across the smithy's floor, wondering whether he should pick one up and try a few passes with it, or sharpen it, or polish it, or do something semi-useful to make the time until Elizabeth's return a little less maddening. In the end, he left the swords untouched and simply continued pacing. The feel of a blade in his hand in this particular place would only remind him of Jack, and Jack was what he was trying unsuccessfully not to think about.  
  
He and the _Black Pearl_ had to have gotten away. _Of course_ they had gotten away. Anything else was unthinkable, and anyway, Jack always escaped. Except when he didn't, and was caught and put in chains and dragged up onto a scaffold to have a noose placed around his neck.  
  
When Elizabeth finally returned, sliding through the door like a slightly bedraggled shadow, he knew instantly that something was wrong, and the vague, uneasy feeling that had been lurking in his gut became much less vague and more uneasy.  
  
"What is it?" he demanded, starting towards her.  
  
She turned suspiciously damp-looking eyes at him—she had been crying, which made some deep part of him very angry at whomever was responsible—and said the very thing he had been praying with all his soul that she wouldn't say.  
  
"They've got Jack."  
  
For one strange, endless half-second the floor seemed to drop out from under him, even as the bottom dropped out of his stomach and his breath seemed to stop. Then the floor was back, and he was taking Elizabeth by the shoulders and pulling her gently down onto the bench, saying, "We're going to get him out somehow," and ruthlessly squashing the little voice inside his head that clamoured desperately that it wasn't true, it couldn't be true, they couldn't possibly be going to hang Jack.  
  
"Of course we are," Elizabeth nodded. "Of course we are." Then her entire face seemed to crumble, and her shoulders shook slightly. "How? I mean, last time was pure luck. Luck won't work twice."  
  
"Ah…" Will's mind was frustratingly, disappointingly, scarily blank. What vengeful heathen god, he wondered suddenly, had cursed him to be forever forced to watch the people he loved be dragged off into mortal peril, leaving him behind to scramble about trying to save them? And why did this sort of thing keep happening to _him_? He had never stolen any Aztec gold.  
  
Elizabeth drew a long, shuddering breath and scrubbed at her eyes with both hands. "I'm not going to cry," she announced, sounding as if she were issuing herself a command. "I've cried enough already." She drew another breath. "But I can't help feeling that it's all my fault."  
  
Will slid an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. She fit perfectly against him, head lying in the hollow between his neck and shoulder. "Elizabeth, how could it possibly be your fault? You weren't even there." But he had been. Maybe if he hadn't been busy clumsily falling off ships, he could have done something to prevent Jack's being captured.  
  
"That's right, you don't know, do you?" Elizabeth murmured cryptically. "Remember those earrings Jack gave me, just before you two left?" she asked.  
  
"With remarkable clarity," Will answered, feeling a faint smile at the memory lurking somewhere inside him even in the middle of this mess of problems and misery. He stoked Elizabeth's hair with one hand as he listened, absently pulling the rest of it free from it's complicated arrangement of twists and coils. It was soft under his fingers, smooth like a polished sword hilt.  
  
"Remember that letter father got from my cousin Robert in England, saying that he was planning to emigrate out here?"  
  
Will nodded, wondering where on earth this explanation was going. So far, it had a disconcertingly Jack-like nonsensicalness about it.  
  
"Well, Robert did come, and he came on the _Golden Dolphin_, and halfway between here and Cuba the _Black Pearl_ took her and Jack acquired my earrings. From my cousin-in-law, after killing Robert."  
  
A whole collection of scattered comments made by the _Black Pearl'_s crew suddenly fell together inside Will's head, meshing with Elizabeth's story like the lines of a fishing net. His hand halted on Elizabeth's hair, leaving the pin he had been about to pull out in place. "Your cousin shot Anamaria?" he blurted out. It was a phenomenally stupid question, but for some reason it was the only thing he could think of to say.  
  
"He did?" Elizabeth looked almost relieved, for some odd reason. "So that's why Jack did it. I _knew_ he had to have had a reason. She not dead, is she?"  
  
"No, the bullet went through her shoulder." He looked down at her, no longer hiding her face in his shoulder but staring up at him seriously, brown eyes worried. "How do you know this?"  
  
"The _Golden Dolphin_ came into port about a week after you left, and Mary Rose—Robert's wife—told Norrington and my father all about it. And then she recognized my earrings, and went to Norrington, and he came to me." She looked down suddenly, hands twisting nervously in the fabric of his shirt. "I lied to him, of course, but he figured out that Jack had been here, and that you had left with him. He said that Jack would have to come back to bring you home eventually, and that he'd be waiting when he did. I should have lied better. I'm sorry."  
  
"It's not your fault," Will assured her. "If it's anybody's fault, it's Jack's." Only Jack could manage to give Elizabeth jewellery stolen from one her own relatives. Which didn't change the fact that they had to get him out of this somehow.   
  
"Mary Rose thinks I'm having an affair with him behind your back," Elizabeth said, almost dryly. "Everyone else thinks you've run off with him and abandoned me for a life of piracy. We're two thirds of a buccaneering love triangle."  
  
"She thinks what?" Will blinked at her, honestly blindsided. On closer consideration, he supposed it could look as if there were something between Jack and Elizabeth. She'd always been fascinated with pirates, and now suddenly this extraordinarily good-looking and seductive one came along and saved her from drowning, was trapped on an island with her overnight, was rescued from the scaffold by her and her husband, gave her earrings… No, it still didn't work. Elizabeth would never have an affair with Jack without telling him. "But of course, you're not. Jack wouldn't have made jokes about it if you were."  
  
"No, but-" Elizabeth broke off suddenly, and looked down again, voice taking on a choked quality. "But, I think maybe part of me might have wanted to."  
  
Will should have felt jealous or angry, hearing that. He knew he should have. And he did feel jealous, sort of, and maybe a bit betrayed, but mostly what he felt, as a sudden, uncomfortable, revelation began creeping into the corners of his mind, was _left out_.  
  
The thought of Elizabeth and Jack sharing something so intimate, so personal, with each other without his knowledge was curiosly painful. He found that a part of him almost resented the idea, not because Elizabeth was his wife and belonged to him and no one else, which was what he _should_ have been thinking, but because a secret relationship between the two of them would have left him shut out, excluded, never privy to the parts of themselves that Elizabeth and Jack were revealing to each other.  
  
"Will," Elizabeth tried tentatively, "say something." She had pulled away from him and was sitting alone now, surrounded by a bubble of empty space.  
  
"Well, it's understandable," he managed after a moment. "I mean, Jack's very, er, very..." he trailed off, searching for the proper adjective to describe Jack's aura of mystery and scatter-brained sulryness, and couldn't quite find one. "And I'm not nearly as interesting or jingly."   
  
Elizabeth leaned forward again, reaching up to touch his hair, which had long ago come loose from its tie and was falling around his face in sticky, salt-water-encrusted tangles. "You're every bit as interesting," she said fiercely. "You're just a different kind of interesting."  
  
Oddly reassured, Will nodded and leaned forward to kiss her. It was a brief kiss, a brush of lips only, but some of the invisible tension in the air dissolved away afterward. "Since you _aren't_ sleeping with Jack, let's rescue him first and then decide which one of us is going to elope with him later." Wait, that hadn't sounded quite right. Will might have secretly nursed the desire to sail away aboard the _Black Pearl_ and leave Port Royal and all its restrictions behind, but the phrase "elope with Jack" put a different and much more improper spin on things, and called up unhelpful memories of the way Jack's skin had gleamed darkly in the lamplight of his cabin, muscles shifting beneath it as he pulled his shirt over his head, of the warm weight of Jack's arm about his shoulders... Firmly, he shoved the distracting images out of his mind.  
  
Elizabeth's lips quirked, a smile trembling there for an instant and then dissolving. "If we can get him out," she began, almost visibly resuming a business-like attitude, "no, _when_ we get him out, all three of us have to leave. Norrington's put out an order for your arrest, just as you said he would, which means you'll have to go on the run as well, and I'm not staying behind this time."  
  
"Of course you're not," Will told her. "I'd never leave you." Leave. The two of them _would_ be leaving after this, wouldn't they? Leaving Port Royal and everything and everyone there behind, possibly forever. There would be no clemancy granted them for rescuing Jack from justice this time. Elizabeth would have to leave her father, he would have to leave his smithy, the forge he had learned his trade in, worked in for years. The first thing he had, after Mr. Brown's death this past fall, ever owned in his own right.  
  
He had met Jack here, coming in one afternoon to find a disreputable hat sitting next to his anvil and a disreputable pirate hiding in his workshop, had forged dozens of blades here, making them and practicing with them until swords had become as narual in his hands as a hammer and tongs. He had made love to Elizabeth here, one day when she had come to find him finishing up his work, the reddish light from the forge fire turning her hair copper and her skin rose.  
  
"We need a way to get off the island," he pointed out, pulling his attention away from th flood of memories. "To someplace safe, maybe Tortuga." The world was full of forges and smithies, of places where he could sparr with Jack and make love to Elizabeth. The forge he had used in Tortuga had been decent, albeit a bit run down, and there were surely others somewhere he could rent or buy. Or even build.  
  
Elizabeth's face stilled as she thought, eyes staring past Will at something unseen. "There's Harry Kennedy's sloop," she said after a moment. "He's... well, they caught him smuggling rum and hung him, so he won't miss it. It's moored just below the fort. There was a sentry guarding it a couple of weeks ago, but it's small and not much use to the navy, so it's just sitting there now."  
  
"So we steal this ship, after somehow breaking Jack out of jail, and the three of us sail it to Tortuga?" As plans went, there had probably been better ones. Jack, if he were here, could no doubt have come up with something far superior, though probably equally risky, if not more so. "All right. But how are we going to get Jack out of jail?"  
  
That was a question neither of them had an answer for.

^_~

  
  
**Elf-locks:** As before, locks of tangled or matted hair (the word "dreadlocks" didn't exist in the eighteenth century). The implication is that hair could only get so messy if it were tangled by malicious elves.  
  
**Mr. Brown:** is the name of Will's master, the drunk smith, according to the sign outside the shop in the movie.  
  
**Kennedy:** No relation to the family of American politicians--though they did make their fortune as bootleggers during Prohibition, so there could be.

^_~

Thank you to all my reviewers!

**Calendar & Diana:** Thank you! I am cruel with cliffhangers only to be kind—wait, no I'm not.  I just find them convenient places to end chapters.  

**kandra:** Thank you!  Glad to know my story isn't too difficult to understand (and I wish I could point out some useful non-English research material, but I'm sadly mono-lingual).  

**musegurl18 & Eledhwen: ** Thank you!  I'm glad y'all are liking my story.  

**Berne:** Thank you!  I'm glad my _Pirates_ fic makes the cut.  Jack's a difficult character to get ahold of, but I try my best.  About the research—I really didn't do that much, beyond check out a few books and websites.  I owe most of this knowledge to exstensive reading of historical fiction.

**WCSPegasus:**  Thank you!  Fangirl me all you want.  I've never been fangirled before. *squees excitedly at prospect *  About Will's swimming ability—congratulations.  You've spotted the fic's biggest plot hole.  My only excuse is that Jack was somewhat distracted at the time, and that it had been a few months since he'd seen Will escape the _Interceptor_.  

**Beth Winter:**  Thank you!  It reads like Rafael Sabatini?  Really? *is flattered *  I loved _Captain Blood_ (which is possibly _why_ this is rather adventure-novely).

^_~  
  
This installment of self-righteous Mary Rose and semi-clueless Will has been brought to you by raisin scones, the UCC computer lab, and McVities Digestive Biscuits.

  
Next up, _Chapter Thirteen: In Which Norrington Dines with the Governor and Jack Feels Sorry for Himself._  
  
Elizabeth wants Jack's sexy, sexy body, Will probably wants Jack's sexy body, but does Jack want them in return, or does he just want freedom from jails, headaches, and sentences of death?  Stay tuned for the answer, as well as yet another serving of angst and melodrama, including a form of angst possibly never before seen in _Pirates_ fanfic: Weatherby Swann!Angst.  
  
God, this thing has turned into an absolute bloody soap opera, hasn't it?


	13. In Which Norrington Dines with the Gover...

**DISCLAIMER:** _Pirate's of the Caribbean_ is owned by Disney. Come on, if it were mine, do you honestly think we would have gotten all the way through the movie without ever seeing Jack shirtless?  
**Title:** A Pirate's Life 13/15  
**Posted By:** Elspeth, AKA Elspethdixon  
**Ships:** Will/Elizabeth, Jack/Elizabeth, eventual Jack/Will, eventual Norrington/OC. Probably a bit of unrequited Norrington/Elizabeth as well.  
**Warning:** This story contains killing, stealing, lots of angst, an OC, and a non-evil Norrington. Sadly, it probably will not contain any hot, steamy sex scenes.  
  
**Chapter Thirteen: In Which Norrington Dines with the Governor and Jack Feels Sorry for Himself.**  
  
_"What are these hills, these hills, my love,  
these hills so dark and low?"  
"These are the hills of Hell, my love,  
where you and I must go.  
Where you and I must go."_  
  
"I know I've already congratulated you on your capture of Sparrow, Commodore," Governor Swann said gravely as he buttered a slice of bread, "but it bears repeating. I really must commend you for your success, even if the, ah, collateral damage was rather high."  
  
"I was merely doing my duty, Governor," Norrington answered, for what was probably only the third time, but felt like the hundredth. "My duty to His Majesty, my duty to the people of this colony." And my duty to Mrs. Swann, something inside him whispered. He nudged it back into silence. He had gone after Sparrow because it was the right thing to do, not because Sparrow had put lines of grief in Mary Rose Swan's drawn face, or because Sparrow had repeatedly eluded him and made a fool of him, or because he and Turner had saved Elizabeth when Norrington could not, or because he had somehow seduced Elizabeth and Turner into abandoning any pretence of morality. Those factors had only provided added impetus.   
  
Across from him, Mrs. Swann fiddled with the stem of her wine glass, not drinking. She wasn't eating either; the meat on her plate was untouched, and she had done nothing with her bread but pick at it. Occasionally, she glanced over at the empty seat where Elizabeth was supposed to be sitting, and then looked away, tiny frown lines appearing for an instant around her eyes.  
  
No one was remarking on the fact that Elizabeth was in her apartments with the door locked firmly from the inside, instead of at the dinner table. No one was mentioning the fact that she hadn't spoken a single word to any of them since leaving Mrs. Swann alone in the couch this morning, and most certainly no one was so much as alluding to any of the reasons _why_ she wasn't at the table. Instead, they stared at each other awkwardly and said the same things over and over, and the longer the half-hearted conversation limped on, the more uncomfortable it became.  
  
"Governor," Norrington ventured after a moment, heading the other man off before he could say something else congratulatory. "I'm sincerely sorry on your behalf that your son-in-law failed to do his duty to you. And to Mrs. Turner."  
  
Governor Swann looked pained, and Norrington immediately regretted bringing the matter up. True, everyone at the table was thinking about it, but perhaps mentioning it aloud had not been the politest thing to do. The older man might not wish to discuss his troubles.  
  
"Poor Elizabeth," the governor sighed, looking away from Norrington and staring down moodily at his plate. "I wish…. Perhaps I made a mistake in allowing her to marry the boy. But she wanted it so much, and he seemed so attached to her. I never imagined…" he trailed off and shook his head.  
  
"Sometimes, once a man gets a taste of piracy, he is simply unable to back away," Norrington said. "I've seen it before. When a man has made a habit of taking the law into his own hands, it can be all too easy for him to return to lawlessness given the opportunity." Though offered as a half-hearted explanation, it was all too true. The garrison had lost a good two score of men to desertion over the past decade, and a disquieting number of them had reappeared on the gallows.  
  
Mrs. Swann, listening, arched both sandy eyebrows in surprise. "How did my cousin's husband get 'a taste of piracy?'" she asked. Her voice held something that could have been prurient curiosity, had it not sounded oddly plaintive. "And how on earth did she get mixed up with that, that Sparrow man?" She shuddered slightly. "She seems to know him extremely well."  
  
"Too well," Governor Swann said, making a small huffing sound of disapproval. "I shall feel greatly relieved tomorrow when he is hung. He has been helpful in the past, but I don't at all like the way he looks at her, and I've never felt quite easy in my mind about the night they spent on that island."  
  
"She spent the night with him? _Alone_?"  
  
"It is a very long, very complicated story," Norrington said, feeling tired. Thinking about the whole Isla del Muerte fiasco generally had the effect of making him either tired or irritable, sometimes both. "Several months ago, a gang of pirates attacked the city and carried Mrs. Turner off. Mr. Turner rather rashly broke Sparrow loose from jail and enlisted his questionable aid in recovering her. Things didn't go quite as they planned, and the Navy was forced to intervene and recover all three of them."  
  
"And then," Governor Swann sighed, "my daughter and her husband decided to rescue Sparrow from the gallows. In hindsight, allowing this to occur was probably not a good idea." He turned a serious face to Mrs. Swann. "I'm afraid Robert's fate may be partly my fault, for turning a blind eye to that pirate's escape."  
  
Mrs. Swann blinked, face blank for a moment. "You mean this man was captured twice before, and escaped twice?" She glanced unobtrusively around the room, eyes flicking over the plasterwork, the array of china on the sideboards, and the wide picture windows. "He won't escape again, will he?"  
  
"Certainly not," Norrington assured her. "This time, Mr. Turner isn't here to assist him. And I've a Royal Marine on guard outside the jail just in case. And after tomorrow, you'll never have to worry about him again." He reached across the table and laid his hand on top of Mrs. Swann's for a moment. Only a moment—anything longer would have been taking liberties. She had very small hands, the bones in them delicate and fragile as a bird's, and smooth, soft skin.  
  
"Yes," Mrs. Swann said softly. "Tomorrow, he will get what he deserves." Her eyes dropped down to her plate, and she prodded a slice of beef with her fork. "I'm not certain,' she began, then paused and repeated the phrase, "I'm not certain I wish to go to the execution. I, I thought I wanted to, but… I've seen men die. Robert. The _Golden Dolphin's_ crew. I don't know that I want to see it again. I think just knowing that he's dead, that he's paid for what he did to Robert, will be enough."  
  
"Perfectly understandable, my dear," the Governor said. "I must confess, I'm not exactly fond of hangings myself. Elizabeth can stay here with you tomorrow, while the Commdore and I carry out our duties." He sighed again, the lines in his forehead deepening. "This is going to be hard on her. She seems oddly attached to Sparrow. She was always bringing home strays as a little girl; cats, dogs, rabbits, even a piglet once. They were always filthy and injured, and usually ended up running away, and she would always cry for days when they did. I could thrash William for running off like this," he concluded.  
  
There was a long moment of silence, which Norrington finally broke by pushing back his chair and rising to his feet. "This has been a lovely meal, but I'm afraid I have duties I must attend to. If you'll forgive me, Governor, Mrs. Swann…"  
  
"It's been lovely having you for dinner, Commodore," Mrs. Swann said, smiling slightly in a sincere effort at good cheer. She rose to her feet as well, smoothing down the fabric of her skirt with both hands. "Let me walk you to the door."  
  
"Thank you, Mrs. Swann." Norrington summoned up a smile for her as she led him to the door, her heavy skirts swishing. They paused in front of it, facing each other, and there was a long moment of silence in which the two of them simply stood, looking at one another.  
  
"Well, I suppose I shall see you tomorrow," he finally said, adding quickly, "after the, ah, hanging, of course."  
  
"Yes," she said. "Tomorrow." Grey-green eyes lifted from the floor and stared straight into his for a moment. "Thank you, Commodore. For, for everything. I know my uncle has already said it, but I wanted to say it as well. I shall always be grateful to you, and I am very pleased that you've returned safely to Port Royal."  
  
And then the Governor's major domo was ushering him out, and before he had a chance to reply he somehow found himself outside and on the path down to the harbour. Norrington pushed thoughts of pale skin and a soft voice to the back of his head, and shifted his attention to duty. The pleasant part of the evening was over, and he had a prisoner to check on.

^_~

  
  
He was standing in the streets of Port Royal, the dirt hot under his bare feet. Ramshackle wooden buildings loomed around him; warehouses, taverns, all the official or shady structures that grew up around ports and docksides. These buildings were different, though, oddly large, as if built for giants. There was something not quite right about them, about the way they were placed, the number of them. Something off, yet oddly familiar. This wasn't the Port Royal he was used to, but it was unmistakably Port Royal.  
  
People streamed through the street around him, taking no notice of him as they went about their business. There was a strange feel to the air, as if a hurricane were looming on the horizon. Automatically, he began scanning passerbyes' faces, looking for someone, though he wasn't sure who he was looking for. He simply knew, suddenly and viscerally, that someone important to him was missing, someone who should have been with him was not there, and he had to find her--or was it him?--_right now_, because something very, very bad was about to happen.  
  
And that was when the ground began to move.   
  
The earth heaved and rolled like the sea on a calm day, long slow swells rising and falling. He fell to his knees, balance stolen by the treacherous shaking, and watched in terror as the ground pitched violently, the buildings around shaking back and forth with the force of it until roofs and walls collapsed.   
  
All around him, people were screaming. A man ran past him, nearly knocking him to the earth in his desperation to escape, though where the man thought he could escape to when the earth itself had risen against them God only knew.  
  
He pushed himself to his feet, fright warring inside him with the unstoppable need to _find_ whomever he was looking for, before the earth opened up and ate them alive. He wanted to scream, like the panicked people around him, or throw himself flat to the earth and hang on, ride out the horrible, unnatural, shaking swells, but an insistent voice somewhere in the back of his head was howling that if he didn't find his missing person _now_, this very moment, and grab them and hold on tight and never let go, he would never see them again.  
  
So he began to run. People screamed and pushed at him, or grabbed him and pelted him with desperate demands to tell them what was happening, but he shook himself loose and ran out, shouting out a name--he wasn't sure whose--until his throat was raw. The ground pitched and rolled beneath his feet, tripping him up, and as his knees splashed into the water that was seeping up through cracks in the angry, quaking earth, he saw two people dashing around a corner ahead of him, sun flashing on honey coloured hair and the bobbing white plume of a hat.  
  
He staggered upright again and ran after them, screaming for them to wait, to stop, but a stone warehouse collapsed like a breaking wave across his path and he was forced to halt, to fling himself out of the way of falling rock and splintering wood. When he climbed over the shifting and dancing wreckage, they were gone, and he was running again, wild with fear and frustration.  
  
He splashed unsteadily through narrow, flooded streets, dodging falling boards and frantic people, always chasing that flicker of gold and white, but never quite catching up. Past the graveyard, he ran, carefully not looking at the graves that yawned open to disgorge their rotting dead, spilling skeletal horrors out into the sunlight, past a church where the bells were ringing a wild and discordant death knell, past a blacksmith's forge that was collapsing into a fiery inferno, and down toward the docks.  
  
He skidded to a halt within sight of the water, clinging to a corner of a building for balance as the earth _heaved_ upward yet again, and felt a great upsurge of hope and triumph as the fleeing couple turned and caught sight of him. Two pairs of dark eyes widened, and the man stretched out one callused, scarred hand, reaching, beckoning.  
  
"Will!" he shouted, pushing off from the building and staggering forward toward them, "Elizabeth!" He meant to shout a warning, to drag them to safety, wherever that was, to cry "I love you" or "Don't leave me," or something along those lines, but the words caught in his throat.  
  
And then the sea rose up in a great wave and swallowed everything.  
  
Jack jerked awake with a hoarse cry, slamming his head back into the stone wall behind him. An explosion of light flared up behind his eyes at the impact, and he bent forward, clutching his abused head in both hands and slowly absorbing the fact that the ground beneath him appeared to be stationary.  
  
No giant waves, no earthquakes. It had all been a dream.  
  
"God," he whispered, hands shaking from the tidal surge of adrenaline his body had dredged up in response to the images in his head. He could still see some of them, a handful of moments standing out even as the rest of the dream melted away to wherever dreams went when a man woke up. Port Royal surging and rolling around him, rotted corpses climbing out of their graves, Elizabeth and Will's faces moments before they were swallowed up by the sea.  
  
It hadn't been real. Real was Will falling backwards over the _Endeavour_'s rail. Real was the look on Elizabeth's stricken face as she had stood next to her father and a vaguely familiar-looking blonde woman and watched those hulks in red uniforms haul him away. Real was the throbbing ache in his head and sore bruises in his side and the cold, depressing knowledge that he was probably going to hang in the morning.  
  
Gradually, the pain in his head sank back to the dull, baseline ache it seemed to have settled at at some point during the day, and the jittery, panicked rush generated by the nightmare ebbed away, leaving a hollow weariness in its wake. One part of the dream had been real. Will Turner really was dead. Elizabeth was going to fall apart. She adored the lad, anyone could see that, and now he'd gone and gotten himself killed and she was going to be left all alone.   
  
She didn't know yet. Commodore Norrington had told her that Will had escaped with the _Pearl_--confirmation that the _Black Pearl_ had indeed escaped was the one bright spot in the whole bloody miserable situation—which meant that she was still unaware of her husband's fate.  
  
Somehow, he had to tell her. Had to see her, to explain, to apologize—for all the good it would do—to let her know. She had a right to know. Unfortunately, he seemed to be pretty well stuck here, in a barren jail cell without so much as a moldy bone with which to tempt the jailor's dog. Not that that would have done any good anyway, since the dog was nowhere to be seen. If Will had been there, he could no doubt have levered the cell door open with some fancy bit of blacksmith-type knowledge, but of course, Will wasn't there. He was dead. And come morning, Jack would be dead too, and in no position to tell Elizabeth anything.  
  
Jack leaned his head back against the wall—carefully, so as not to reawaken the pain that lay in wait to clamp around his head like a vise if he did anything to aggravate it—and closed his eyes. He didn't sleep this time, though. More sleep might lead to more dreams, and he had a feeling they would not be the fun sort involving naked women and lots of money. Or even naked men.   
  
No, these would be the sort of dreams where ships burned and sank and shipmates died and rotting, undead ex-crew members attacked and ate you. Or the sort where you looked down at your own hands and watched flesh rot and slough off, until white bone gleamed up at you in the moonlight. The not-fun sort of dreams.  
  
The I've-gotten-someone-important-killed-and-lost-my-ship-and-I'm-going-to-die in-the-morning sort of dreams.  
  
Jack found himself almost wishing that someone else had been captured along side him. It was good that his crew had escaped, but if one of them—hell, if anyone else—were here right now, at least he would have someone to talk to. Something to do beside sit in an empty room and wait. God, he thought rather resentfully, really shouldn't require him to spend the last night of his life alone and bored.  
  
As Jack stared moodily at a stream of moonlight that was slowly coalescing in the steadily darkening air—it was not shining on him yet, but a few more hours would have it beaming down onto his feet—his ears caught the sound of footsteps ringing on stone, as someone descended the steps into the jail. A moment later, the cells were illuminated by a warm circle of yellow light, as a tall figure stepped into Jack's line of sight, lantern light gleaming on his white wig and glinting off the buttons of his uniform.  
  
God, Jack decided, had a twisted sense of humour.  
  
"Commodore. How lovely of you to join me." He smiled at the man, a big, toothy, insincere smile, and waved a hand at the empty doorway behind him. "I see you left the lad with the hobnailed boots outside." Vicious little bastard was probably too busy beating up some other prisoner to come.  
  
Norrington didn't dignify the comment with an answer, but merely stared silently down at Jack with frosty blue eyes. Once the silence had stretched out just long enough to be uncomfortable, he asked, "Enjoying the Crown's hospitality, are we?"  
  
"Well, now that you mention it…" Jack let the sentence trail off invitingly, waiting for Norrington to pick up his verbal fencing sabre and riposte. He didn't, simply smiled slightly in an irritatingly smug fashion. Elizabeth would have come right back with a well-bred but stinging put down by this point. Anamaria wouldn't even have needed words, just a contemptuous snort or a handy hard object to chuck in his general direction. Even Barbossa would have made some smiling, condescending threat, managing somehow to convey with the mere tone of his voice that Jack was younger and more naive than Will. The Commodore just kept up that stiff, frosty silence, as if responding were beneath him.  
  
"Well, you have to admit," he tried again, "the accommodations leave somethin' to be desired." Tired of staring up at Commodore Norrington's looming figure, Jack planted a hand on the wall behind him and heaved himself to his feet. There was moment of dizzy, floating giddiness, in which sounds seemed to come from the other end of a long tunnel, and the abnormally stationary ground swung and dipped beneath his feet. He covered his momentary stagger with a sweeping, expansive wave of one arm, the gesture taking in the entirety of the jail. "A lot of somethin's. Somethin' to drink, for example." He smiled hopefully up at the other man, who still loomed over him like a ship's mast, the sunken floor of the jail cell exaggerating the difference in their heights. "Surely a condemned man's entitled to a last bottle of rum." Rum. Just saying the word brought a sudden awareness of how dry his throat was. Reminded him that he hadn't had anything to eat or drink since breakfast that morning, and that most of that had ended up on Norrington's no-longer-quite-so-shiny black boots.  
  
Those glacial blue eyes narrowed with an almost tangible contempt. "The Crown's resources, Mr. Sparrow, are intended for higher purposes than supplying you with alcohol."  
  
Well, it had been worth a shot. He had hoped to wring a few smaller concessions out of the man before going after the big one, but the Commodore was not the concessions-granting sort. Jack kept his smile in place anyway, leaning against the bars that separated him from Norrington as if they were there for his personal convenience, and not as a barrier to keep him in. We're all friends here, Commodore, and friends do favours for their friends. "Very commendable sentiment. You'll at least let me say my farewells to the lovely Mrs. Turner first, of course? Dyin' man's last request, and so forth. I promise, it won't cost His Majesty a penny."  
  
"Do you take me for a fool?" Norrington demanded. "Of course you can't see her. I will not give you an opportunity to plot an escape."  
  
"Escape? But it's so comfortable an' cosy here." Norrington's nostrils flared ever so slightly, and his eyes darkened with irritation. Jack backpeddled hastily. "Well, not so much cosy as secure. Extremely secure. Nigh inescapable. C'mon, mate, just a brief chat? You can stand at the door and glare at us the whole time."  
  
"_Mrs. Turner_," Norrington spat, stressing the name, "has no need to associate any further with the likes of you."  
  
"Please," Jack said, not quite able to control a wince at the word, "just let me talk to the woman. I need…" he trailed off, taking a deep breath. He was not begging. Captain Jack Sparrow never begged. And he wasn't begging now. Not exactly. "Someone has to tell her that Will is dead."  
  
"He's what?" Norrington stared at him, shock eloquent in every stiff line of his body.  
  
"Dead," Jack repeated. He leaned his head forward, forehead resting against the hard metal line of one of the bars. Saying the words aloud made it feel more real somehow, took some of the spice out of the semi-pleasurable activity of Norrington-baiting, which up until then had been serving as a fairly adequate distraction from thoughts of Will. "Drowned. Gone to Davy Jone's locker. He went over the side and you hit me before I could do anythin' about it."  
  
Norrington was still staring, his features still beneath that ridiculous white wig. He seemed to be considering something. "You're certain of this?"  
  
"I don't lie about things this important," Jack said, too tired to be indignant at the slight on his veracity. "Not to Elizabeth." The metal bars under his hands and against his forehead were cool, the only cool things in the warm, humid night. The coolness felt good against his bruised temple, and the ache behind his eyes receded a bit.  
  
Norrington watched him for another long moment before the tense set of his jaw relaxed and something that might almost have been regret flickered in his eyes.  
"I will speak to Mrs. Turner," he said, voice slightly softer than it had been before. "You have my word on it."  
He turned to go, boots striking solidly on the stone floor as he made for the doorway and the stairs beyond it. Jack watched him leave, the warm globe of lantern light moving away with him.  
  
"Wait," he called after him, actually stretching one hand out through the bars before realizing that that really made it look as if he were begging. He pulled the offending limb back quickly.  
  
Norrington half-turned, looking back at Jack over one epauletted shoulder.  
  
"You sure you couldn't see you way clear to gettin' me some rum?" Jack asked again. "Or ale? Or water, even? It's been a long time since this mornin'," he added, by way of explanation. A drink would help take away the pain of the headache and the bruises, and while it wouldn't make Will any less dead, it _would_ make it hard to think about the fact that he was dead.  
  
"Yes," Norrington agreed, "It has been." And he turned away and continued his climb up the stairs. The heavy oak door at the top of the steps fell closed behind him with a solid-sounding thud, followed closely by the fainter thud of a bar falling into place.  
  
A few minutes later, the door scraped open again, and a second pair of booted feet descended the steps, this time without an accompanying lantern.  
  
Another wig, another uniform, another frown, but this time the uniform coat was red rather than blue, and considerably less sparkly. The marine set a wooden tankard down on the floor with a heavy, forceful thud, and used the toe of one boot to nudge it forward until it was just within Jack's reach.  
  
Jack bent down and snagged it by the handle. He could tell by the scent that it was water, and not the rum he had asked for, but at the moment he didn't particularly care. Nor did he care that he had to drink it awkwardly through the mesh of bars, with the guard watching him the entire time. The water tasted wonderful, cool and wet against his parched throat, and he drained the entire tankard, unhealthy liquid humours and all. It wasn't as if he needed to worry about falling ill.  
  
The moment he removed the tankard from his lips, the marine glowered at him and pointed meaningfully at the floor. Jack sighed, suppressed the impulse to roll his eyes—much good strangling the man through the bars would do him with the keys left hanging on a hook on the opposite side of the room instead of on the guard's belt—and set the tankard on the floor, then stepped back away from the bars and spread his arms, displaying his empty, weaponless hands.  
  
The guard stomped forward, snatched up the empty tankard, and stomped out, grabbing the keys off the hook as he went and depriving Jack of even the dubious pleasure of gazing at them longingly. Water delivered, water drunk, cup reclaimed, and all without a single word being spoken.  
  
Jack went back to his spot by the wall and resumed watching the patch of moonlight, which was now inches from his boots. It was cold too, like the cell bars. Absently, he fingered the frayed fabric of his left sleeve, worrying at a loose thread, eyes seeing not the fabric, but the image inked onto the flesh beneath it. _Memento mori.  
  
_He found himself sincerely wishing that the jailor still had that little dog. It would have been nice to have somebody sympathetic to talk to.

^_~

  
  
**The Port Royal Earthquake:** In 1692, half of the city of Port Royal was destroyed by a violent earthquake and the tidal wave that followed it. Parts of the town literally sank into the ocean, and hundreds of lives were lost. This fic is set in the early 1720s, roughly 30 years later. Talk about an event that would scar a small child for life…  
_  
_**Royal Marines:** The redcoated soldiers in the film. Royal Marines, who wore red like the British Army instead of a naval uniform, served as guards on naval bases and extra fighting men on warships. A hold-over from the days when sailors merely handled the ships and soldier were carried onboard to do the fighting. This, for the curious, is where the US Marine Corps came from.

**water:** Jack's personal tastes aside, alcohol actually was safer to drink than most water during the eighteenth century, especially in tropical/sub-tropical areas like the Caribbean. Cholera, dysentery, and scores of other nasty little micro-organisms were everywhere (one of the benefits of tea was that, since you had to boil it, the water in it was safe).

^_~

Thank you to all my reviewers!

**Merry1:** Thank you!  Yea! Another Norrington fan!  He's not evil, only doing his job.  *ponders*  I suppose there really isn't a villain in this story, only adversaries.  

**Calendar:**  Thank you!  I promise, by the end of the next chapter, Jack will, one way or another, be out of the jail cell.  He doesn't like it much either.

**Mokonopuff & Eledhwen:**  Thank you!  I'm glad y'all are loving the story, if not Mary Rose (she isn't very tolerant on the whole, is she?  Still, she serves an important purpose in the plot).  The attempts at in-period lingo sort of crept in in the first few chapters, and after that I started making a conscious effort to do it (or at least, to try and avoid obvious modern slang).

**Kaitou Ann:**  Thank you!  So, you don't want me to introduce the plucky young female pickpocket I'd been planning to have imprisoned in the cell next to Jack?  The one who was going to pick the locks with her hair pin (after tearfully but bravely suffering untold brutalities at the hands of the guards) and free him so that he could help escape with her and help her recover from her fear of men (caused by said guards' mistreatment) with the magic healing power of his love?  Damn.  I was planning on making her the godmother of Elizabeth's twins.

**JexyBaby:**  Thank you!  Sorry about the long lapse between updates.  I'll try to get the last two installments out more quickly, eventual Will/Elizabeth/Jack mush and all.

**Angel Spirit:**  Thank you!  I'm thrilled that you like the story even though it isn't your usual pairing.  Elizabeth and Will are going to stay together, I'm afraid, but there will be an eventual Jack/Will element.

**Honor & Anni:**  Thank you! I'm sorry it took so bleeding long for me to update—life in Ireland is so full of shiny distractions.

^_~

_  
_This severely late chapter was brought to you by Elspethdixon's new Dell laptop, the film Ned Kelly, and, as always, the UCC computer lab.  
  
Stay tuned for _Chapter Fourteen: In Which Elizabeth Acts Most Unladylike._  
  
It's Piratical Escape Attempt III: Return of the Son of The Great Escape.


	14. In Which Elizabeth Acts Most Unladylike

**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Disney. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. Come on, if it were mine, do you honestly think we would have gotten all the way through the movie without ever seeing Jack shirtless?   
**Posted By:** Elspeth, AKA Elspethdixon  
**Ships:** Will/Elizabeth, Jack/Elizabeth, eventual Jack/Will, eventual Norrington/OC. Probably a bit of unrequited Norrington/Elizabeth as well.  
**Warning:** This story contains killing, stealing, lots of angst, an OC, and a non-evil Norrington. Sadly, it probably will not contain any hot, steamy sex scenes.

Chapter Fourteen: In Which Elizabeth Acts Most Unladylike.

_With her pistols loaded she went aboard.  
And by her side hung a glittering sword,  
In her belt two daggers; well armed for war  
Was this female smuggler,  
Was this female smuggler, who never feared a scar.___

            Elizabeth eased the door to her room open with painstaking slowness, intent on making sure that the hinges did not squeak.  She shut it behind her with equal care, the soft sound caused by its closing seeming loud enough to wake the entire house.  When she turned around afterward to find herself face to face with a silent, watchful Mary Rose, her heart nearly stopped.

            Quicker than thought, one hand darted up to pull the silk shawl tighter across her chest, while the other held the bundle of clothing she was carrying—the breeches and coat borrowed months ago from some marine on the _Dauntless_ and never returned—behind her back.

            "Mary Rose!" she blurted out in startled dismay.  "What are you doing here?"

            "I couldn't sleep."  The other woman was eyeing her with open suspicion, taking in her daytime attire and shod feet, completely out of place for this time of night, especially in contrast with Mary Rose's linen nightgown.  Hopefully, the dim light and the shawl over her shoulders concealed the deeply immodest neckline of her dress from Mary Rose's sharp gaze.  

            "I see you couldn't find slumber either," Mary Rose continued, blonde eyebrows raised slightly.

            "I was merely," Elizabeth began, and then she sighed, giving up attempts at denial and squaring her shoulders for battle.  There was no use pretending that she wasn't sneaking out, and the guiltier she acted, the more suspicious Mary Rose would be.  Jack's voice whispered in the corners of her memory_.  'The easiest way to take somethin' is to act like you have a perfect right to it.'_

            "I need to say goodbye," she said bluntly, staring straight down into Mary Rose's pale eyes.  "And if you tell anyone about this, if you try to stop me, I'll never get to."  She seized on the faint trace of sympathy she thought she saw in the other woman's face and went on, "I know it's not right, but I have to."  Then, rushing on headlong before Mary Rose could stop her, she ruthlessly shoved aside any feelings of guilt and played the ultimate card.  "I love him, Mary Rose, the way he laughs, that smug grin of his, the way he saunters about like the entire world is the deck of a ship and he's the captain of it.  I love him, and I can't, I _can't not see him one last time.  Wouldn't you have given anything for a chance to say goodbye to Robert?"  She felt absolutely evil at the sudden grief in Mary Rose's face, the sad lines that appeared in that moment around her eyes and the tight, painful set of her mouth.  Lies and manipulation were not her strong point, anymore than they were Will's, and using Mary Rose's grief over her husband to play for sympathy was unconscionable.  Still, Mary Rose's feelings were a small and unimportant thing when balanced against Jack's life, and a Mary Rose distracted by emotion was less likely to figure out that a woman going to bid farewell to a jailed lover could just as easily be going to try and set him free._

            "He's the one who killed Robert," Mary Rose said flatly.  Her voice was as hushed as Elizabeth's, both of them speaking in near whispers, Elizabeth out of the need for secrecy and Mary Rose presumably simply due to the atmosphere, or a conscientious desire not to wake anyone else.

            "Yes," Elizabeth said, equally blunt, "and he's going to die for it tomorrow."  Just saying the words made her feel queasy and hollow inside, even though she knew that Will was down in the forge even now, waiting for her arrival so that they could set about securing escape for the three of them.

            Mary Rose sighed, a short, disapproving exhalation, but something in her very anger let Elizabeth know that she had won.  "You're married," Mary Rose reminded her harshly, "even if your husband has run off and left you."  There was disgust in her voice, but also a sort of grudging sympathy, as if part of her understood Elizabeth's plight, albeit unwillingly.

            Elizabeth offered up a sad smile, trying for fatalism in her voice and face as she responded, "After tomorrow, none of it will matter anymore, will it?"  She gave Mary Rose a steady look, studying the other woman's fine-boned face for understanding.  "He'll be gone, the way Will already is, only Will's alive out there somewhere, and he won't be."  She did not say Jack's name, afraid mention of it would remind Mary Rose of precisely _who_ it was she was so desperate to "say goodbye to," and awaken the resentment and anger Mary Rose felt toward the pirate.

            "I don't understand any of this," Mary Rose said softly, her voice so plaintive that the faint words were almost a wail.  "You, and that pirate, and the Commodore, and your husband…" she shook her head, looking bewildered.  "There are secrets everywhere on this island."

            "One woman, two men," Elizabeth told her.  "It's not very complicated."  Which was a lie, of course, but explanations would have taken too long.  _'Let's rescue Jack first and then decide which one of us is going to elope with him later,' Will had said.  Right.  Getting Jack out of jail came first; resolving romantic entanglements could wait.  Now, she had to sway Mary Rose.  _

She would have placed a pleading hand on the other woman's arm, but both of them were occupied.  "Please, don't wake anyone else up," she said, looking straight into Mary Rose's eyes and praying with all her soul that the sympathy she thought she saw there was real.  "Don't tell anyone where I've gone."

            Mary Rose shook her head, looking down at the floor.  "I shouldn't be doing this.  I shouldn't—oh, all right.  Go now before I change my mind."

            "Thank you," Elizabeth said, offering a slight smile—possibly the first she given Mary Rose since the dreadful day of Robert's funeral when the other woman had set Norrington on Jack and Will.  Then she left, hurrying down the hallway at a pace that wasn't quite a run, but wasn't far from it, either.  At every step, she half expected to hear Mary Rose's voice behind her, calling out and waking the house in a well meaning attempt to preserve Elizabeth's virtue—or a spiteful effort to deny her the goodbyes that Mary Rose had never gotten to say.  It never came.  Mary Rose stood silently in the hallway and watched her go.  When Elizabeth looked back once, at the head of the stairs, she saw the other woman regarding her with an expression that was almost pitying, an upright woman looking at another who was about to fall from grace.

            It might have made her feel guilty over what she was about to do, but knowing that the servants would find the note and the earrings on her bed in the morning and deliver them to her father and Mary Rose assuaged her conscience.  Her father would understand then.  He had too.

            The familiar path to Will's forge seemed much shorter this time, without the constant worry of prying eyes.  This late at night, the streets were empty, and most of the windows were dark and shuttered in a futile effort to keep out mosquitoes.  It never worked, of course.  They were everywhere.  She could hear one of the nasty little insects whining about her head as she knocked lightly on Will's door, and resisted the urge to swat at it.

            "Will," she hissed, knocking harder.

            The door swung open suddenly beneath her knuckles, and she just barely managed to stop herself from delivering the final rap on Will's chest.

            "Elizabeth."  He pulled her inside and kicked the door shut behind her.  "Does anyone know you're gone?"

            "No," she lied.  Mary Rose wouldn't tell.  She mustn't.  _Oh please, God, don't let her tell_.  "The whole town is quiet."

            "Good."  He nodded, his brows drawn together the way they did when he was worried or thinking hard.  "You go and get the boat ready.  There shouldn't be anyone watching it; I checked earlier.  I'll got and get Jack."

            Elizabeth shook her head, and drew a deep breath to prepare herself for the argument they were about to have.  "No, _I'm_ going to go get Jack."  She placed one hand over Will's mouth before he could speak, cutting off any protests.  "_I_ am currently the only one of us without a price on my head.  You'll be seized the moment you try to go near the jail.  I might be able to talk my way in."  She nodded down at the neckline of her bodice, exposed now that she had abandoned her grip on the shawl.

            Will's eyes widened and he gently reached up to pull her hand away from his lips.  "Elizabeth-" he began.  She could see the rest of the sentence in his eyes.  _'No wife of mine is going to walk up to some strange soldier dressed like that.' _Being Will, however, he didn't say it.  Instead, he broke off for a moment and then continued in a milder tone, "It's too dangerous."

            "Will, I've never sailed a ship before in my life," she hissed.  "I don't know _how_ to get Kennedy's sloop ready to sail.  And giving me instructions won't be good enough," she added, anticipating what would come next.

            Will nodded slowly, clearly not liking this, but recognizing that he didn't have much of a choice.  "All right.  What are you going to do?"

            Elizabeth smiled, trying not to let her nervousness show through.  "What else?"  She waved her free hand toward the front of her bodice, and the substantial amount of cleavage on display there.  "Distract the guard."

            Will's lips quirked in an unwilling smile.  "He'll be very distracted, I promise."  He took the bundle of clothing from her and set it down on the floor, next to his own sack of spare shirts and the like.  "You should take a weapon."

            Elizabeth crossed the little room to stand by Will's anvil, picking up a long bar of pig iron that lay across it, waiting to be forged into some kind of tool.  "You mean, something like this?"  It was a heavy weight in her hand; it's solid heft almost comforting.

            "Aye, something like that."  Will smiled again, and then he was embracing her, holding her to his chest in a grip so tight it was almost crushing.  "Be careful, Lizzie," he whispered.  "I will not trade you for Jack."

            Elizabeth closed her eyes for a moment, feeling the coarse linen of Will's shirt pressing against her cheek.  She hugged him back, one armed, since her right hand still retained the grip on the iron bar.  "I'll be careful," she promised.  She tipped her face upward and pressed a kiss against Will's lips, his moustache tickling her cheeks.  It sent a shiver through her insides, but now was not the time for that sort of thing.  "Now go and steal us a boat."

            "Commandeer," he corrected gently.  "I'm commandeering a boat.  It's a nautical term."  He drew back and looked at her for a long moment, as if he were memorizing the shape of her face.  "The cells are down the stairs and to the left," he told her.  "Each cell door uses a different key, so you'll need to take the whole ring."

            She nodded silently, and left, makeshift club hidden within a fold of her skirts and shawl clutched tightly around her.

            The walk to the jail, unlike the walk to Will's forge, seemed very long.

            There was only one guard, she noted with relief as she peered around the corner of the street at the solidly built little jailhouse.  A Royal Marine, intimidatingly tall and imposing in his red uniform, was standing at attention in the doorway with a bored look on his face.

            Elizabeth drew a deep breath, then stepped around the warehouse and started down the street toward him.  "Sir?" she asked, as she dew nearer.  "Are you the one in charge here?"

            "Yes, miss," he nodded, looking highly surprised to be accosted by anyone so late at night.  "You should go home, miss.  This is no place for a woman, especially not at this time of night."

            "But, Lieutenant"—he was clearly a corporal, but a little flattery couldn't hurt—"I came before, this morning, and they told me to come back later."  She gazed up at him with wide eyes, trying to look innocent, but not too innocent.  He didn't look familiar, and apparently hadn't recognized her as the Governor's daughter, or he would be calling her 'Mrs. Turner' instead of 'miss.'  "I need to, that is, you have my, ah, my cousin, locked up in there, and I was wondering if I could perhaps go in and see him?"

She leaned forward slightly as she asked the question, letting her shawl slip down her shoulders as if by accident, exposing bare skin, and breasts forced upward by the bloody uncomfortable tight corset into an indecently bountiful display.  The man's eyes dropped downward, pulled to them like a compass needle being drawn toward magnetic north.  

            Elizabeth withdrew the bar of pig iron from the folds of her skirts and hit him over the head with it.

            He fell heavily to the ground, and lay so still that for a horrified moment, she thought she had killed him.  When she saw that he still breathed, relief made her knees feel weak.  Only unconscious.

            Stifling her lingering feelings of guilt, she pulled him up into a sitting position against the wall, so that it would be less obvious that he had been knocked out.  She left him propped up like that and bent to lift the bar across the door, gritting her teeth as the corset stays pinched her ribs.  It was heavy enough to make her fingers ache, and the door itself was even heavier, so solid that she had to throw her weight against it in order to pull it open.  Once through, she eased it closed behind her with even more care than she had used back at her father's house, sure that if she simply let it swing shut, the resulting bang would wake up half of Port Royal.  The sound of the hinges creaking and the bottom of the wooden door scraping against the stone of the stoop already sounded loud enough to alert the entire street.

            Down the steps and to the left, Will had said.  She went down the steps as quietly as she could, feeling her way in the dark, one hand trailing along the wall.  The only prison she had ever been in before had been the brig on the _Black Pearl, and part of her mind almost expected to find rusting iron bars and pools of greasy overflow from the bilges at the bottom of the stairs, even though she knew the very concept was ridiculous.  What she found instead was a neat row of cells, relatively clean and barred with new and sturdy-looking ironwork that made her very glad she possessed that ring of keys._

            Jack was in the cell farthest from the stairs, leaning against one corner of the wall with his knees drawn up and his head resting back against the stones behind him, eyes fixed firmly on the narrow shaft of moonlight filtering through the small window.  He didn't even turn his head when she entered.

            "Back with me rum, are you, Corporal?" he asked the empty air in front of him.  "You certainly took your time about it.  I shall be sure to complain to your superiors."

            "I would have been here earlier," Elizabeth heard herself saying, "but the guard and I had a slight disagreement over the keys."

            Jack's head snapped around, and he rolled to his feet in a single, smooth movement, fast as a striking snake.  Once upright, he spoiled the effect slightly by swaying sideways against the wall for a moment, one hand spread flat against the stones for balance.

            "I won," Elizabeth continued, holding the ring of keys up to clink softly and catch the dim light.

            "Elizabeth!"  Jack's eyes were fixed on the keys, wide and surprised and, under that, almost approving.  "Have I ever told you how much I love you?"

            "Only when you want something," she said, unable to keep the smile off her face as she thrust the first of the keys into the lock.  Jack was on his feet and being smarmy, which meant that he couldn't be that badly hurt despite the bruises the moonlight just barely illuminated on his face.  Which meant that they were going to get away with this, and everything was going to be all right.  

            The first key didn't work, so she yanked it out and tried the second, feeling a surge of minor triumph when it turned and she heard the tumblers inside the lock grinding.  Jack had the cell door open and himself on the other side of it in seconds, and Elizabeth, relief singing a jubilant song inside her, flung her arms around him.

            Every since she had seen Jack standing on the dock in chains, there had lurked somewhere deep in her insides the insidious fear that she would never see him alive and free again, that she and Will would fail to rescue him and she would have to watch him jerk and twitch in agony on the end of a rope, those expressive hands flying to his throat for one last struggle before going still forever.  Now he was here, right in front of her and alive, and so she wrapped her arms tight around him and held on hard, just as she had with Will that morning.

            Jack took one startled step back when her weight hit him, and then his arms came up around her in turn, not quite as tight, but still there.  He smelled like dried blood and vomit, the smells overlaying the usual sweat and saltwater odour of his skin and clothing, and the fabric of his right sleeve was so saturated in gore that it had dried stiff and tacky.  A thread of something cold and frightened ran through Elizabeth's stomach.

            "You're covered in blood," she said, releasing him and running horrified hands over his arm in search of a wound.  

            "Yes, I've been tryin' to forget that," Jack muttered.  He intercepted her hands almost irritably, batting them away, before her concern seemed to penetrate.  "It's not mine," he said, obviously trying to be reassuring, but not succeeding very well.  This close, Elizabeth could see the bruise on his forehead clearly, a swollen patch of black and purple that had spread downward to blacken his left eye.  It was his only visible injury, but all of that blood…  God, how could she not have noticed the blood this morning on the dock?

            "It's not _mine_," Jack repeated.  "Elizabeth, love, breathe."  He gave her a little shake, and then his gaze dropped downward and focused on the neckline of her bodice.  Or rather, its lack of a neckline.  His eyes, one surrounded by bruising, the other by smeared paint that almost made it appeared bruised as well, widened, but he said nothing.  He didn't even leer at her, or smirk, or even smile, which, considering the fact that he was currently being treated to a view most men probably only got in brothels, was decidedly out of character.  "Love," he let go of her shoulders and took a step back, "there's somethin' I need to tell you-"

            "Later," she interrupted, realizing suddenly just how long the two of them had been standing there.  Only minutes, true, but they didn't have minutes.  Someone could come in at any time and find them.  "We need to get out of here before the guard wakes up again."

            "Didn't you tie him up?" Jack demanded.  His eyes were darting around the room—looking for his weapons, Elizabeth realized.

            "Ah, no," she admitted.  "Should I have?"

            Jack shook his head slowly and spread his hands.  "You always tie them up," he explained, with a flash of that all-knowing-pirate-imparts-wisdom-to-his-naïve-apprentice attitude that Will seemed to find so irritating.  "If a man doesn't have a rope around his wrists or a slit throat, he's got a nasty habit of getting' up and comin' after you, savvy?  An' sometimes even bein' dead doesn't stop him, like in those dreams where Barbossa still isn't finished and comes crawlin' up the side of your ship in the dead of night so his nasty little monkey can strangle you in your sleep."  He crossed to the wall by the stairs in three strides and began sorting through the collection of odds and ends hanging from the pegs there.  "Sword belt," he muttered to himself as he took inventory, "cutlass—not mine but it'll do, pistol—which is _not_ loaded, of course.  Damn.  Compass…"  As he spoke, he buckled on the sword belt and began distributing the items—some of which Elizabeth was sure had not originally belonged to him—about his person.  He flipped open the lid of the compass and checked the bearing for a moment, then closed it and stowed it carefully away inside his coat.  "Now, what did these idiots do with my hat?"

            "Forget the hat, Jack," Elizabeth finally exploded.  "You can steal a new hat.  Let's just _leave_."  What was wrong with the man?  Save for that first moment, she realized, he hadn't met her eyes once.  That, added to the completely pointless babbling about Barbossa's monkey—why did he have to mention that horrid thing?  She'd never had nightmares about being strangled by it before, but she certainly was going to now—meant that he was upset about something.  Jack, she had noticed, tended to babble when under stress, as if by piling enough words on top of a problem or potential threat he could intimidate it into going away.  Was this about Robert?  Was that why he didn't want to look her in the eyes, because he knew he had killed a man who was kin to her?

            "Excellent suggestion, love."  Jack seized hold of her arm and started for the stairs, swaying against her slightly as they began to ascend the stone steps.  Elizabeth would have complained that he was taking liberties, or gently but firmly moved his hand away, but she wasn't sure whether this was normal Jack swaying, or 'I have a serious head injury' swaying.  If she called him on it, he'd probably claim the second.  And there was something… comforting, about the touch of his fingers on her arm.  Like Will's touch earlier, it seemed to tingle against her skin, but more than that, it made her feel safer somehow.  Which was ridiculous, because Jack's company almost always brought some sort of mayhem with it.

            Still, impending mayhem or not, Elizabeth felt a weight lift from her shoulders as the two of them reached the entrance to the jail.

^_~

 Thank you to all of my reviewers.

**Shellie Rae: **Thank you!  The song lyrics at the beginning of the chapters are from eighteenth century ballads.  Most of them are from the songs "John Riley," "High Barbaree," and "House Carpenter."  This chapter's are from "The Female Smuggler."

**Tidanna & Honor: **Thank you!  Um, this doesn't exactly qualify as "soon," does it?  *points at classes * it's UCC's fault.  *remembers amount of fanfic she's read in the past two weeks and shuffles feet *  Really!

**Eledhwen & i.c.k.: ** Thank you!  I'm glad y'all liked the dream/snippet of backstory.  I was a bit nervous about that part, as I'd never done a dream sequence before (and thus was faced with the challenge of trying to make it vaguely symbolic without sounding hokey and trite).  The Port Royal earthquake was just too major an event not to utilize somehow, and the idea of poor, orphaned ickle Jack being abandoned in the stews of Port Royal was too tragic-yet-cute to turn down.

**Erinya:** Thank you!  I'm glad you're liking the story even though Jack/Will isn't your usual paring.  More of the buccaneering love triangle coming up!  *sees Erinya distracted by shirtless, wet Jack * Um, yeah.  The entire second half of chapter eight was pretty much an excuse for me to drool shamelessly via Will.

**Saturn's Hikari:** Thank you!  Ah yes, the complicated web of misconceptions surrounding Will's fate.  Norrington thought Will was alive, but now thinks he is dead (and that Elizabeth is unaware of his demise).  Jack thinks he's dead, and that Elizabeth doesn't know yet.  Lizzie knows he alive, and has no clue that Jack et. al think he's dead.  The buccaneering love triangle is about to get a big surprise.

**Ariana Deralte & Kathy H:** Thank you!  More support for non-evil Norrington ^_^.  I must confess that, as ungodly sexy as Jack is, I have a certain soft spot for military guys, especially the navy *waves Go Navy, Beat Army flag *  As for the research, it's simply the OCD showing through (that and the inner history minor).

**Foreordained Destiny** Thank you!  All thirteen chapters in one sitting?  Wow.  That's a lot of reading.  *is impressed * I'm glad you liked it ^_^.

**Calendar:** Thank you!  See, no dead Jack.  I'm not JK Rowling; I wouldn't kill off the most interesting character (unless, of course, it was done in a long, drawn out, hyper-dramatic fashion a la Shakespearean tragedy).  

^_~

This somewhat overdue instalment of aggressive coolness on the part of Elizabeth was brought to you by Vick's cold medication, curry flavoured ramen, peanut soup, and, as ever, the UCC computer lab.

Coming up next, Chapter _Fifteen: In Which Our Heroes are Reunited_.

Will Mary Rose reveal Elizabeth's departure prematurely?  What will Jack's reaction be when he discovers that Will is still alive?  And, most important of all, once Will & Elizabeth finish rescuing Jack, which one of them will get to elope with him?  Find the answers to these and other exciting questions, next time on, "As the Caribbean Turns."  Same pirate time, same pirate channel.


	15. In Which Our Heroes are Reunited and Nor...

**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Disney. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. Come on, if it were mine, do you honestly think we would have gotten all the way through the movie without ever seeing Jack shirtless?  
**Posted By:** Elspeth, AKA Elspethdixon  
**Ships:** Will/Elizabeth, Jack/Elizabeth, eventual Jack/Will, eventual Norrington/OC. Probably a bit of unrequited Norrington/Elizabeth as well.  
**Warning:** This story contains killing, stealing, lots of angst, an OC, and a non-evil Norrington. Sadly, it does not contain any hot, steamy sex scenes.****

Chapter Fifteen: In Which Our Heroes are Reunited and Norrington is Greatly Vexed.

_I know where I'm going_

_And I know who's going with me._

_I know who I love, _

_But the devil knows who I'll marry._

            Until Elizabeth had appeared in front of his cell, Jack had honestly believed that he was going to die.  It was only now, as the two of them began to climb the stairs out of the depressingly familiar confines of Port Royal's jail, that the fact that he was _not in fact going to be hung after all began to sink in.  The flood of relief that accompanied this realization was almost sickening, and for some reason, made his head hurt even more than it had a moment ago.  Or maybe that was the effort of climbing the jail's damnably steep stairs.  Or, more likely, the thought of telling Elizabeth about Will, which he was going to have to do any second now._

            No, he decided, suppressing a wince at the thought of the look that was going to appear on Elizabeth's face when he told her, that could wait for later.  For now was getting the rest of the way out of here, like the lady had so wisely pointed out.

            Elizabeth reached the top of the stairs a step ahead of him, and he reached out a hand to pull her back, slightly surprised when it met warm, bare flesh instead of a decently sleeve-covered arm.  Where _had she gotten that dress, anyway?  It would have done Giselle, or Scarlette, or any of a dozen "ladies" he knew in Tortuga proud.  "Better let me go first, love," he said, sliding past her and out the door.  "Me bein' the one with the weapons an' all."_

            Fortunately for his reputation, he didn't actually trip over the body sprawled out in the doorway.  Not really.  It was more like a stumble, and he caught himself on the wall before Elizabeth could catch it, so it didn't really count anyway.

            "Ooww," the body moaned, as the impact of Jack's foot jarred him out of his precarious balance against the wall.  "Oooh, Christ…"  He stirred, placing one palm flat against the ground and trying to push himself upright.

            Jack drew his foot back, paused for a moment to judge the angle, and kicked him in the head.  He went down like a sack of grain.  Wishing the nameless man had been the nasty, self-important little midshipman from Norrington's ship instead of some nameless Royal Marine was probably un-Christian of him, but then, no one had ever accused Jack of being a good Christian.

            "Sorry about that, mate," he told the once again unconscious guard, then added, to Elizabeth, "Let's be goin' before sleepin' beauty wakes up again, shall we?"  He unwrapped the sash from around his waist, giving the faded silk one last, regretful look—he'd always been rather fond of it, and at the moment, it was the only piece of clothing he had that was free of bloodstains—and passed it to her.  "You want to do the honours?"

            Elizabeth knelt down, and, without another word, began tying the guard's red-coated arms together, using an intricate series of knots some sailors would have been hard pressed to equal.  She finished the affair off with a carefully tied bow.  Jack almost regretted the fact that he wasn't going to have the opportunity to see Norrington's face when he found the man.

            "Very pretty," he commented, indicating the bow with the hand not holding his new cutlass.  He bent down, removed the man's purse from where it hung on a string about his neck—soldiers always seemed to keep their money in the same spot—and tucked it inside his own coat, then extended a hand to Elizabeth. "I'm sure the Commodore will appreciate it."

            Elizabeth smiled, lips curving up for a moment, and then the expression was gone and her face was serious again.  She ignored his offered hand and stood, brushing off her skirts, and picked up the iron bar lying in a corner of the doorway, giving it an experimental swish with her right hand the way Will used to test the balance of a sword before fighting.  She must have watched him fence too.  Come to think of it, she'd probably spent considerably more time watching him fence than Jack ever had.

            All of that kneeling and bending did interesting things to her tightly-corseted breasts—especially the bending part, because when she did that, a man could see all the way down—Jack firmly put an end to that line of thought.  He'd gotten her husband killed; he had no right to drool over her breasts.

            No matter how soft, and rounded, and… No.  Not drooling.  Absolutely not drooling.  Where the _hell_ had she gotten that dress?

            "I doubt it," Elizabeth said, as she led the way toward the docks.  "But at least I've left a note apologizing to him."

            It took a moment for Jack to figure out that she was still talking about Norrington, but when he did, he very nearly laughed in spite of everything that had happened.  "You left him a _note?" he repeated, amazed.  This was probably the most civilized jailbreak he had ever participated in._

            "No," she corrected absently, "I left my father a note.  But I told him to give Commodore Norrington my regards."

            Jack could only shake his head.  "You would make a very interestin' pirate, love," he said, not quite regretfully.  He quickened his pace a little, putting himself in front of her again.  He was the one with the cutlass, after all, though she seemed to be able to use that iron bar of hers fairly effectively, if that guard had been anything to go by.  "I assume you have some sort of plan to get me out of here," he said as the two of them reached the edge of the dock.  "Or are we improvisin'?"

            Elizabeth smiled proudly, and pointed to a small sloop moored near the end of the line of vessels.  "Your ship awaits, Captain."

            'Funny,' Jack thought, as he ran an assessing eye over her rigging, 'that's exactly where I left Anamaria's boat last time I came here.'

            Then Jack saw the figure standing on the sloop's gangplank, and his feet came to a dead halt.

            For one single, horrifying moment, he thought it was Bootstrap Bill standing there, back from the bottom of the ocean to avenge his son's death, or maybe come to collect Jack, sent by some impatient god who'd decided that he had cheated death one too many times.  Then his brain caught up with his eyes and informed him that the figure's hair was dark, not sun-bleached blond, that he didn't have Bill's scar, stretching up from his jawline through the corner of his right eyebrow, that the eyes that were staring into his own were brown, not blue.

            Will.  It was Will.

            The paralysis gripping his feet suddenly vanished, and Jack did something that he had never done before in his entire life, even when faced with a beautiful woman.  He flung himself forward, almost stumbling over his own boots in his haste, and threw himself at Will, hugging him hard.

            "Don't you ever do that to me again!" he hissed fiercely, some part of him still aware enough of the situation to choke what ought to have been a shout down to a normal volume.  "You idiot!  You stupid, brainless, clumsy, lubberly excuse for a pirate!"  He was babbling, he realised, but he couldn't seem to stop.  Will hadn't moved, hadn't said anything, but it was Will, because he was only a little bit taller than Jack and Bill had been a lot taller, not to mention broader through the shoulders, plus, he would have slapped Jack alongside the head with the flat of one hand and told him to 'shut it' by this point, which Will hadn't done, which meant it really was Will.  "I thought you were dead.  I thought you were _dead," he repeated, more quietly, that first burst of something that wasn't quite anger wearing down.  Rational thought began creeping back in its wake, and a horrible suspicion flashed into his mind._

            "You aren't, right?"  He backed up a step, holding Will at arms' length and inspecting him for any signs of incipient skeleton-ness.  "You're not under a curse, are you?"

            Will, who up until now had simply been regarding him with a slightly shell-shocked expression, finally moved, tugging his left arm out of Jack's grip and placing one hand on Jack's shoulder, which, incidentally, got the cutlass Jack was still grasping in his right hand a little farther away from him.  "Jack," he said, slowly and with great patience, "what are you talking about?"

            "You went overboard!" Jack almost snarled.  "I saw it.  I thought you had _drowned.  I thought I'd lost you along with my ship, and Elizabeth too, seein' as how she wasn't exactly goin' to appreciate you bein' dead."_

            "Jack," Will repeated, with a noticeable amount of 'don't upset the crazy man' calmness in his tone, "I can swim."

            Oh.  Right.  Jack suddenly felt extremely stupid.  Will could swim.  Of course Will could swim.  He'd even seen the lad do it before, when the _Interceptor_ had sunk.  "You can swim," he parroted, staring at Will, who stared back at him intently, brows drawn together.  Elizabeth had moved up behind him and was now staring at both of them, looking from Will, to Jack himself, and back again with an expression that was not quite shock on her face.  Clearly, she had no idea what was going on.  It was nice to know someone else shared that problem.

            "Yes," Will repeated, sounding slightly exasperated now.  "I can swim.  I can swim quite well.  Jack, how hard were you hit on the head?"

            As if summoned by Will's words, the dull pain in his skull began to throb again, taking vicious revenge for the fact that Jack had been ignoring it since leaving the jail.  It didn't like being ignored, and it didn't like all this walking around, and the steady ache was beginning to make him feel ill.  Still, his head no longer felt as if it were coming apart, and the world was no longer pitching and heaving around him like a storm tossed ship.  Well, the ground was moving up and down a bit, but dry land always did that.  Solid terra firma was evil, and couldn't be trusted.

            "This?" Jack waved a hand toward the bruises on his face—it necessitated letting go of Will, but sacrifices occasionally had to be made for the sake of expressing oneself.  "A small inconvenience, courtesy of his Commodoreness."  He felt a wide, foolish grin spread itself over his face.  "You're not dead," he said again, for what was probably the twelfth time.

            Will reached out and snagged Jack's hand in midair, forcibly moving it out of the way and peering at his face.  One callused finger prodded carefully at Jack's forehead, above and slightly to the left of his eyebrow.  Jack jerked his head back, breath hissing though his teeth.  "Ow!"

            "Sorry," Will apologized half-heartedly.  "Blacksmith's hands."

            Warm blacksmith's hands.  _Alive blacksmith's hands.  Dead men's hands were cold.  Will's blacksmith's hand prodded at Jack's temple again, provoking another flare of pain in swollen, bruised flesh.  Jack used the hand Will didn't have a grip on to try and bat the offending fingers away, and Will took the hint.  He stopped his pain-inducing poking and let his hand drop, trailing his fingers down the side of Jack's face as he did so, fingertips brushing along cheekbone and jawline in something that wasn't quite a caress.  Jack raised an eyebrow—the right one, the left one wouldn't move.  Will's hands caressing him was something that belonged firmly in the realm of 'evil thoughts that are fun precisely because you know they are evil.'  It wasn't supposed to happen in real life.  Then again, there were times when real life and Jack's imagination got difficult to tell apart._

            Elizabeth's voice broke into his thoughts, impatient and edged with worry.  "Jack, Will's fine.  Will, Jack's fine.  Can we all please get on the boat and leave before someone finds us?"

            Brilliant suggestion!  Elizabeth was definitely developing a flare for this sort of thing.

            "Yes, let's do that.  Leavin' would be a very good idea.  I think we may've worn out our welcome in this lovely settlement."  He made a sweeping gesture toward the little sloop and Will obediently jumped aboard, his movements not quite as graceful as they usually were.  It must have been a long day for him as well.

Will then proceeded to help Elizabeth and Jack aboard.  Sort of.  Elizabeth got a graceful steadying grip on her extended hand, as if he were helping her down from a coach.  Jack got a solid grip around his wrist and a forceful yank.  It threw him off balance, and he stumbled when his feet hit the deck and went sprawling forward into Will.

Will was knocked back a step by the impact, but managed to keep the pair of them from landing on their arses on the deck.  He grabbed Jack by the shoulders to steady him, much the same way Jack had taken hold of him earlier, and Jack sagged into the grip, grateful for the support.  His head really did hurt, and there was a ringing noise in his ears.  Everything was going to be all right now; Elizabeth and Will were here and it was safe to relax, and Will was a good support to relax against.  He'd get about to untying the mooring ropes and casting off in a bit, when the buzzing in his head went away.

"Jack?"  Will was staring into his face, looking very concerned and cute.  Someone put a hand on his arm, offering more support.  Elizabeth.

"Jack?"

"M'fine."  He shook off the dizziness and stood up straighter.  "You get the sails, love.  I've got the helm."  Nobody moved.  Jack ran the sentence through his head again, and realized that he'd forgotten to specify which Turner he'd been talking to.  "Will, sails.  Elizabeth, moorings," he clarified.  Still, no motion.

He appealed to Elizabeth, the voice of reason.  "Go cast off, love.  I'm fine."

"Once we're out of the harbour," she told him, in a voice that sounded disconcertingly like Anamaria handing out an order, "you're going to lie down somewhere."  And then she took his cutlass and went to go and cut them loose from the dock.

Jack pushed off from Will and made the four strides across the deck to the sloop's wheel.  The wooden planks rocked comfortingly under his feet, giving him his balance back.  "If you can swim," he asked Will, as something suddenly occurred to him, "why did you say you couldn't an' leave me to go down into the shark infested water all by me onesies?"

"I didn't say I _couldn't, I said I'd be stupid to admit to it if I could," the answer came back as Will followed Elizabeth's lead and set about casting off and raising sail, far more smoothly than he had done the first time he and Jack had sailed out of Port Royal.  Watching them, Jack felt an odd sort of pride.  They had the makings of good sailors, both of them.  Even Elizabeth, though those beautiful hands of hers were going to be reduced to blistered wrecks by the time they reached—he fished out his compass and checked; the needle pointed east by northeast—Tortuga.  Once he'd done the tricky part and set the course, they could hold it for him._

Jack turned his attention to steering the sloop out toward the mouth of the harbour, past the Palisadoes and the string of little cays that dotted the horizon.  He pushed the ache in his head to the back of his mind and concentrated on the wheel under his hands.  He was Captain Jack Sparrow.  He could go aloft half-dead with scurvy in a frozen gale, reef sail hung-over, and set a course blind drunk.  He could certainly pilot a little sloop out of Kingston Harbour.

Half an hour later, the green and white shoreline of Jamaica dwindling behind them, he gladly handed the wheel over to Will and retreated to the vessel's little cabin.  He threw his bloodstained and by this point irrevocably ruined coat over a chest, left his boots on the floor, and made straight for the slightly-too-small bunk.

There was only one bed, he noted fuzzily as he dropped down onto the straw-filled mattress.  Things could get interesting.

When Elizabeth came in a few minutes later to swap her dress for the 'borrowed' uniform, he never even noticed.  She threw a blanket over him, tenderly brushed a long piece of back hair out of his face, and went on deck to have a serious and potentially embarrassing discussion with Will.  About extra-marital affairs.  And interesting and jingly pirates.  And sharing.

It was time they decided exactly who had eloped with who.  She had a feeling Jack was going to be rather pleasantly surprised when he woke up.

^_~

            Commodore James Edward Norrington stared down at the empty jail cell before him and clamped down hard on the impulse to curse.  Gone.  The bastard was gone.  _Again_.

            Corporal Jenkins hovered nervously at his elbow, doing his best to make himself invisible, as he had been doing ever since Norrington and Gillette had found him trussed up like a Christmas goose on the doorstep.  He had every right to be nervous.  One man, one unarmed, _injured_ man, behind a locked door, had gotten the drop on him.  Unless he could offer one hell of an excuse, Jenkins wouldn't be keeping his corporal's stripe for long.

            "And you say it was like this when you woke up?" Norrington asked evenly, holding onto calmness with his fingernails.  

            "Yes, sir," Jenkins said.  "Someone hit me over the head, an' then when I woke up later with a thumpin' great headache, the little blighter was gone.  They must've snuck up behind me while that strumpet was talkin' to me," he volunteered, hanging his head.  "Sorry, sir."

            "What 'strumpet'?" Norrington asked, suddenly filled with a terrible foreboding.  'Please,' he begged silently, 'don't let it be her.  Telling the Governor that Sparrow slipped though my fingers again is going to be bad enough without-'

            "Blonde girl" Jenkins elaborated.  "She wanted to see the prisoner.  Said she was his 'cousin'." He snorted.   "Only one sort of 'cousin' comes to visit a man in a jail cell."

            It was Elizabeth.  _Of course_ it had been Elizabeth.  Norrington sighed, holding up a hand to halt the flow of Jenkin's continued apology.  He resisted the urge to rub at his temples and thus ease the headache he could feel coming on.

            "Lieutenant Gillette," he prompted.

            "Sir?" Gillette turned his attention from the cell door to look at Norrington.  "The hinges don't look as though they've been touched.  Someone must have unlocked it."  He gave the door a kick.  It didn't budge.  "They seem to have locked it again before they left."

            "Wonderful," Norrington snapped.  "How considerate of Mr. Sparrow.  I see he left the keys behind for us as well."  He pointed at the key ring hanging on one of the wall pegs, a wall peg that last night had been occupied by Sparrow's belt and pistol.  At least he had had the foresight to unload the weapon after removing it from the man, so that, wherever he was, he wasn't running around with a loaded gun.

            He had also confiscated the impressive assortment of wooden cartridges hanging from the man's belt.  There had been upwards of a dozen of them, which made Norrington wonder why Sparrow had only had one bullet the first time they had captured him.  He had been much better armed this time.

            He'd still had the same worthless compass, though.  It was gone too, along with a cutlass and Jenkins' purse.  Sparrow had money, a weapon, and an accomplice.  He was probably half-way to the Lesser Antilles by now, or well on his way to the Bahamas.

            "Go down to the docks and find out which boat has been stolen," Norrington ordered Gillette.  "If none are missing, mount a guard on all naval vessels immediately.  In fact, have someone go check them now to make sure Sparrow hasn't cut their cables apart."

            Gillette looked about to object for a moment, but then he, too, seemed to remember Sparrow's infuriating theft of the _Interceptor_, and the humiliating way he had disabled the _Dauntless_ before abandoning it to them.  He went.

            Norrington, the pressure in his temples slowly developing into a full-blown headache, left as well, departing through the early morning streets to go and confess to Governor Swann.  Jenkins remained behind at the jail, miserably twisting Sparrow's silk sash—the sash they had found knotted about his arms, complete with decorative bow—through his hands.  Those members of the Marine detachment who hadn't gone with Gillette stayed with him.  They were probably going to mock the hapless corporal mercilessly.  It would serve him right.  Perhaps he would learn to keep his guard up in the future.

            As it turned out, Norrington did not have to go to the Governor's house.  Willoughby Swann met him halfway there, storming determinedly toward the fort with his wig on crooked and a slightly dishevelled and very upset-looking Mrs. Swann in tow.

            "Where," he snapped, thrusting a crumpled piece of paper in Norrington's face, "is my daughter?"

            Norrington straightened the paper out and read it, recognizing Elizabeth's looping, ornate script.  

_'Father,_

_By the time you find this letter, I will be gone from Port Royal.  I know you will not agree with my actions, but I can only hope that you can find it within your heart to forgive me…'_

It did not mention Sparrow by name, nor did it specifically mention Will Turner, but she managed to make it very clear that there were 'ties binding her' that were 'stronger than duty and filial affection.' She even included an apology to Mary Rose, as well as a request that the Governor give 'her regrets, and her regards' to Norrington.

Norrington crushed the note into a ball and resisted the urge to throw it into the mud at his feet.  "I'm sorry, Governor," he said heavily.  "She's already gone.  She broke Sparrow out of jail last night.  It's my fault," he continued.  "I should have known better than to leave only one man on guard.  I ought to have kept the shackles on him and chained him to the wall.  I meant restrain him securely after visiting the jail last night, but…" he trailed off.  What excuse could he offer?  'He looked pathetic and I felt sorry for him,' was not acceptable.  Nor was 'I meant to tell your daughter that her husband was dead, but wanted to wait until today because I was too much of a coward to wake her up in the middle of the night to do it.'  If he had kept his word, and gone directly from the jail to the Governor's house last night, instead of waiting to leave it until after the hanging, she might not have left.  The belief that Will was somewhere out there waiting for her was probably what had motivated Elizabeth to run off in the first place.

            Gillette came to his rescue, hurrying up to him to report on the state of the docks.  Unfortunately, the news he brought wasn't good.

            "Our ships are all fine, sir.  I had the men check the cables just like you said.  The rigging and mooring lines, too.  No one's tampered with them.  But Harry Kennedy's sloop is gone.  Someone untied it last night and sailed off with it.  There's nothing there now but an empty pier."

            Norrington probably should have been angry.  He was angry, a bit, but mostly he simply felt resigned.  A crushing weight of inevitability seemed to have descended upon him, as all of the details of Sparrow's escape began to lay themselves out before him.

            "That's the sloop we confiscated from the smuggler we caught last month, right?" he asked, already knowing the answer.  "Damn.  Sorry, Mrs. Swann."  He turned back to Gillette.  "I should think he would only need two or three people to take her out.  He might even be able to sail her single handedly.  We've lost him."

            "But surely you're going to _look_," Governor Swann protested.  "One little boat can't be that hard to catch."

            "It is precisely _because_ it is only one little boat that it will be damn near impossible to catch.  Sorry, Mrs. Swann," he apologized again, absently.  She waved a hand, as if to tell him not to trouble himself over his language.  "A craft that size could fit into any of hundreds of inlets or coves our ships could never venture into.  It's why smugglers like Kennedy are so difficult to apprehend most of the time."  

            Mrs. Swann sighed.  She was staring down at her folded hands with the strangest expression on her face.  It looked almost like… guilt?

            "I'm afraid this is my fault," she admitted.  "I should have _known_ she meant to do something like this, but she sounded so upset.  She told me that she loved him, that she had to see him one last time, and I, I couldn't say no."

            Norrington felt the heavy mantle of guilt settle over his shoulders.  So Elizabeth _had_ run off to try and join Will Turner.

            "She thinks Mr. Turner is waiting for her somewhere out there," he said, feeling once again the familiar anger at the younger man.  Even dead, he was still managing to drag Elizabeth into trouble.  "But he was thrown overboard and drowned during the battle.  I didn't know about it until last night, after I left your house," he told the governor.  "I should have spoken to her then.  I planned to wait and tell her today, but perhaps if I hadn't…" he trailed off, looking away.  Once again, he had failed where Elizabeth was concerned, where his duties to the Navy and to the Governor were concerned.  And once again, it was Sparrow's fault.  He had felt something that was almost pity toward the man the previous night, watching him sag against the bars of his cell and relate the story of Turner's death in same the dead, empty voice Norrington had heard so many officers use when they spoke of lost comrades.  For the first time, it had occurred to him that the slippery little blackguard might have some amount of feeling for his ship and his men, just as an honest captain would have.  Now, he rather regretted that momentary lapse.  Mrs. Swann would not get to see justice done for her husband's murder this day, but would instead have to live with the knowledge that his killer still roamed free.  She deserved better.

            The lines in Governor Swann's face seemed to deepen at this new blow.  He had been rather fond of the young man, Norrington knew, in spite of his occasional acts of disrespect and eventual betrayal.  

            Mrs. Swann frowned, and shook her head.  "No, not Mr. Turner.  Him.  That pirate.  She said that she had already lost Mr. Turner, and she had to say good-bye to that Sparrow before she lost him as well."

            The sorrow on Governor Swann's face changed to a look of horror.  "Elizabeth and Jack Sparrow?" he stammered.  

            It made a disturbing and horrible amount of sense, particularly when one considered Elizabeth's life-long fascination with pirates.  He had had his suspicions regarding Sparrow's relationship with Elizabeth from the beginning, and now they were confirmed.  Norrington found himself regretting that he hadn't hit the man harder when he'd had the chance.  "She didn't merely help him escape," he said hollowly.  "She eloped with him."  He turned to Gillette, who had been listening to the entire conversation with obvious fascination.  "Get the _Intrepid ready to sail," he ordered.  "She's the fastest.  We need to have her out of the harbour before the tide changes if we want to have even a chance of finding them."  Even as he spoke, however, he knew that the search would be unsuccessful.  Nothing involving 'Captain' Jack Sparrow ever went right.  The man was a curse, a plague, a millstone about the necks of decent sailors everywhere.  And now he was out there sailing into the sunrise with the newly widowed Elizabeth Turner, to live happily and immorally ever after.  Life was not fair._

            As Gillette left, Norrington turned to Mrs. Swann, meeting her eyes rather uncomfortably.  He had to look down to do it.  She was a tiny little thing, fragile, like a piece of expensive porcelain.  So very different from Elizabeth.  "Mrs. Swann," he began, "I cannot begin to tell you how sorry I am about all this.  I swore to bring Sparrow to justice for you, and now I fear I have gone back on my word."

            "It's all right, Commodore," she said, managing a faint smile.  "This is my fault, not yours.  You did the best any man could have done, and I owe you my thanks for it."

            And despite the morning's dire events, Norrington felt himself smiling back.  "No thanks are necessary," he told her.  He turned slightly to include the Governor in his next remark.  "I fear I must leave you both again.  I shall do my best to make this expedition more successful than the last, but I fear your daughter may be lost to you.  Still, I shall try to recover her." _And Sparrow_, he added to himself grimly.  Next time, he wasn't going to wait to get the verminous piece of scum back to Port Royal.  He was going to hang him from a yardarm the first chance he got and put a stop to his pillaging once and for all.  "Governor, Mrs. Swann."  He turned to go.

            Mrs. Swann put a hand out to stop him, laying it on his elbow for the briefest of moments before she let it drop.  "It's Mary Rose," she corrected softly, when he turned back.

            "James," he offered almost automatically.

            She smiled again, this one a little more confident than her last, and looked up at him through pale, sandy-coloured lashes.  "Good luck… James."

            Norrington walked through the muddy streets to the docks with a slightly lighter heart.  Elizabeth was gone, Sparrow was gone, and his ships probably weren't going to be able to catch them.  Still, there was always the future.

            Perhaps this morning hadn't been such a complete disaster after all.

cneter^_~

            It was odd, Anamaria mused, how sunsets just didn't seem as colourful as they used to.  Or maybe it was just that some of the thrill of watching them had faded, now that she had fewer friends to watch them with her.

            It truly was a beautiful sunset, the sun swollen and red like a giant ruby, surrounded by gold and carnelian clouds—a treasure galleon's worth of loot spread across the horizon.  Evenings like this, when a woman had a loyal crew around her, and a bottle of good rum near to hand, she should be content to stand on the deck of her newly repaired ship and watch the sunset.  Except that it wasn't really her crew, and rum just didn't taste as good when she didn't have to fight with Jack over the bottle, and the deck beneath her feet didn't belong to her.  Could never belong to her.

Her dream ship was a two-master, significantly smaller than the _Black Pearl and with a much shallower draft, perfect for hugging coastlines and gliding in and out of narrow coves in the dead of night.  Smuggling was where the real money lay. This big, menacing frigate with her heavily armed gundeck and narrow, dark hull was not what she wanted.  Not at all.  For one thing, the wind wailed through the rigging at night like a widow mourning her dead husband._

"So anyways," Gibbs' voice continued behind her, "this miniature chinee woman is standin' in the doorway gabblin' at us in English all mixed up with some heathen language, and it turns out she won't let us in until I pay.  And so I'm tryin' to explain to her that we don't want to lay with-" he coughed, and Anamaria could almost see him remembering that she was there without even having to look back.  "That is, ah, visit with, any o' her girls.  We just want to come inside to hide fer a bit.  Remember," he added, "this whole time we got John Company's soldiers scourin' the streets fer their escaped prisoner, all of 'em angry at bein' made fools of and out fer blood."  Judging by the silence on deck, the crew was hanging on Gibbs' every word.  "So I tries to explain," he went on, "and I steps forward, and there she is in front of me, shakin' her finger in my face and sayin,' 'You no want girl?  Yes, yes, very good.  We have many fine boy, you want boy.' And then she points dead at Jack and says, bold as you please, 'You bring own boy, is extra."

There was a chorus of laughter, albeit laughter with a slightly hollow edge to it.  Someone made a strangled, choking sound, followed by a series of hysterical giggles.  Even Cotton was laughing, that odd raspy noise that was one of the only sounds he made.  Anamaria continued to stare at the sunset, watching a sloop sail gently into the harbour, its sail silhouetted against the sinking sun.  A ship like that, she mused.  Small and sneaky and free from ghosts.

"So," Twigg's voice burst out impatiently, "what did you do?"

"Well," Gibbs paused grandly for emphasis, "I'm all set to argue, but then Jack elbows me in the ribs and damns my eyes and tells me to pay her quick so's we can get off the street.  So I did.  Most expensive visit to a brothel I ever made."

"Arawk," Cotton's parrot commented.  "Any port in a storm."

"You got a point there, Cotton."

"Did you have to pay by the hour, or for the night?" McTaggert asked, sniggering slightly.

Anamaria didn't listen for Gibbs' answer.  She'd heard this story before, in a tavern in Bridgetown, and it just wasn't the same without Jack's constant interruptions, hand waving explanations, and attempts to act out the parts of Gibbs and the old Chinese woman, voices and all.  Instead, she watched the sloop continue on her path toward them.  She was coming about too slowly, her crew clearly inexperienced or short-handed, and her bow was pointed several degrees off of the course it should have been set on.

Funny, but one of the two sailors hauling the sloop's gaff sail about looked almost like a woman.  Either that, or a slightly built young man with very long hair.  Who just happened to be wearing a British Royal Marine's red coat, the brightly coloured garment vividly out of place in the small and distinctly non-navy sloop.

"Either I've gone daft, or that's Elizabeth Swann," Anamaria announced.

Gibbs, torn away from his slightly maudlin storytelling by her comment, appeared at the rail next to her.  "What?  Where?"

"There."  She pointed at the sloop, squinting against the glare from the setting sun to try and make out the little vessel's three crew members.  One man and the woman-who-could-not-possibly-be-Elizabeth-Swann trimming sail, and, at the wheel…

"_Mère de Dieu," she breathed.  It wasn't possible.  It couldn't possibly be-_

"I said come about!" the shout echoed across the water.  "That means pull harder!  Harder!  If you make me run into me own ship I'm feedin' both of you to the sharks, savvy?"

Anamaria was struck silent, shock robbing her of the ability to make a sound, but Gibbs spoke for both of them, cupping his hands around his mouth and bellowing, "Jack!  Jack Sparrow, you daft bastard!  Get over here and take your boat back!"

And then she was smiling, grinning so widely that it hurt her face and waving her hat frantically in the air while almost the entire crew clustered around her, pointing and shouting excitedly.  Beneath them, the _Black Pearl_ seemed almost to bounce in the water as the sloop's bow wave rippled past where she rode at anchor.  Suddenly, she didn't seem dark and haunted anymore.

^_~

**Bullets/cartridges:**   Early eighteenth century pistols (and muskets) were single shot breech loaders (meaning that one loaded the gun by forcing the bullet down the barrel, similar to the way one would load a canon).  Soldiers or musketeers would often carry extra bullets around with them in wooden containers, complete with a single shot's worth of powder in each one—early cartridges. If you've ever seen someone dressed up as a seventeenth century soldier with bunches of little wooden cylinders hanging all over him, that what those were. Revolvers, which held multiple bullets and could be fired several times without reloading, were not invented until the nineteenth century.  So I'm not sure what the whole big deal about the "pistol with one bullet in it" was in the movie—unless what they meant was that Jack was given a loaded pistol but no ammunition for a second shot.  Or Disney screwed up and didn't realize that revolvers weren't around yet.

**Lesser Antilles:** The **Antilles are the largest group of islands in the West Indies, extending from Cuba to Trinidad.  They are divided into two groups, the ****Greater Antilles or ****Leeward Isles (Cuba, Jamaica, and Haiti), and the **Lesser Antilles **or ****Windward Isles, a string of smaller islands east of Haiti and Puerto Rico, running from around the 18th parallel down toward the South American Coast.**

**Sloop:**  A small, single-masted sailing vessel.  Sloops were both fast and highly manoeuvrable, with a shallow draft, and were often used by pirates or smugglers.  They were too small to carry many guns (a fully armed sloop usually only had about six or seven), but could often outrun or outmanoeuvre larger ships.

^_~

Thank you to all of my reviewers!

**Honor & Seph:** Thanks! Sorry, this isn't exactly "soon," is it?  This time I have midterms and Spring registration as an real excuse, I swear.

**Erinya & Concrete Angel:** Thanks!  Ah, the reason my J/E isn't just about sex is because I can't write sex scenes (plus, there's so much more to Jack than just his unimaginable sexiness).  The soldiers were pretty mean to him, weren't they—don't blame Norrington, though.  He did tell his men to stop beating Jack up.  The Jack hanging imagery… yeah.  Um, hanging's not pretty, and many fics/movies sort of downplay how extremely not pretty it is.

**Shellie Rae & Kaitou Ann:** Thanks!  I'm glad y'all like my versions of the characters ^_^.  And Mary Rose.  Y'all two may be the only people out there who like her (other than me).  Elizabeth is getting a little more aggressive, isn't she?  She's going to make a good pirate, now that she and Will have eloped with Jack.

**Calendar:** Thanks!  Nope, not surrounded.  That one was a misleading cliffhanger.

**L'Morgan:** Thanks!  Well, Jack's out of there now.  There's really not much eighteenth century medicine can do for a concussion (other than wait for it to go away), but once he woke up again, Lizzie and Will cleaned all the blood off him (feel free to imagine naked!Jack at this point) and threw his coat overboard.  He and Lizzie arrive in Tortuga both wearing Will's shirts.

**i.c.k.:** Thanks!  The confrontation with Mary Rose was actually a last minute addition, to give her a chance to have a couple of things explained to her (well, sort of).  The bit with Jack has been in my head for months.  As for Elizabeth's sailing skills or lack thereof, well, it's possible that she was exaggerating her ignorance in order to convince Will to let her go to the jail.

**TwigCollins: ** Thanks!  I'm glad you like the dialogue and historical references.  I work hard on the first, and the second just have a way of creeping in (my inner History major seizes the helm every once in a while).

**WCSPegasus: **Thanks!  I'm one of your fandom favourites? *squees in delight *  Yay!

**Blank:** Thanks!  Don't worry about not commenting before—any comment is a good comment.  ^_^ This is the first time I've ever written a story with a love triangle in it, let alone a threesome, and remembering to include all of the relationships was hard work. You liked the yellow fever conversation? *grins happily * That was one of my favourite bits to write. 

^_~

This instalment of piratical melodrama was brought to you by St. Bernerd's mint chocolate chip ice cream, **permetaform'**s picspam, the Star Mountain Internet Cafe, that little crinkle Orlando Bloom gets between his eyebrows when he frowns, and Keira Knightly's breasts.


	16. Epilogue: In Which Certain Proposals are...

**DISCLAIMER:**This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Disney. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. Come on, if it were mine, do you honestly think we would have gotten all the way through the movie without ever seeing Jack shirtless?

**Posted By:** Elspeth, AKA Elspethdixon  
**Ships:** Will/Elizabeth, Jack/Elizabeth, Jack/Will  
**Warning:** This story contains killing, stealing, lots of angst, an OC, and a non-evil Norrington. Sadly, it _still_ does not contain any hot, steamy sex scenes.  What it does have, now, is overwhelmingly sappy (and slashy) fluff.

**Epilogue: In Which Certain Proposals are Made and Accepted**

Elizabeth wore ropes of pearls around her neck, iridescent grey and ebony beads hanging between her breasts, dark against the soft golden glow of her skin.  And there was a lot of skin, because those smooth, shimmering gemstones were the only things she had on.

Will was bent over her, kissing her with a thoroughness that suggested that he meant to eat her from the lips downward.  His hair fell around his face as he bent forward, and the smooth curve of one naked shoulder was visible around the edges of all that bare, feminine skin.  He wasn't wearing any jewellery.  With Elizabeth draped over his lap, her dark golden hair spread across his chest, he didn't need to.

Jack's foot scuffed across one of the coins scattered over the floor, and the pair of them broke apart, turning to look up at him.

Will grinned, a slow, almost shy expression that provided a counterpoint to the wickedly seductive smile on Elizabeth's face.  He reached up, grabbed Jack by the wrist, and yanked him forward and down.

And dissolved into a haze of dark mist.

Jack groaned, and rolled his head away from whatever the irritating wet thing was that was brushing at his face.  His head hurt, his side hurt, he was thirsty, and the ship he was on was not the _Black Pearl.  Damn.  He wanted the dream back.  It had been a nice dream.  Naked Elizabeth.  Naked Will.  Lots of treasure._

Maybe, if he lay very still and kept his eyes closed, he could just let the swaying of the ship lull him back to sleep, and pick up where he had left off.  The motion wasn't quite right, wasn't that unique rhythm that told his bones that he was home and whole, but it was close enough.

Something cool and wet dabbed at his face again, washing over his forehead and cheekbone in slow, even strokes.  Light as it was, the pressure was enough to reawaken the soreness in bruises that were just beginning to hit the high point of swollenness.  So much for that plan.  He turned his face toward the canvass mattress beneath him, trying to escape.

"Hold still," someone commanded.  "And keep your eyes closed.  I'm trying to get that stupid charcoal off them."

Will.  Jack ignored the command—he didn't have to obey anyway; he was the captain here, after all—and opened his eyes.  A fully clothed Will Turner was bending over him, with a wad of damp fabric that looked suspiciously like Jack's shirt—which, he noted, he no longer seemed to be wearing—in one hand.

"Haven't we done this before?"

Will blinked, then followed Jack's gaze to the shirt in his hand and smiled slightly.  "Yes, I think we have, only this time, instead of me being all over dirt, you're all over blood and black eye lining whatever."

Jack smiled back, a deliberately smug smile, and answered, "I'm sure I look even more dashin' in grime than you do."  The smile stretched into a grin as he stared up at Will's dark brown eyes, expressive and alive brown eyes, the events of the previous evening sorting themselves out in his head as the fuzziness of sleep began to clear.  He was out of jail.  Will was alive.  They were going back to his ship, and threats of a slow, painful death by hanging had again receded to the distant and uncertain future.  "I'm glad you're not dead," he informed Will.

"I know.  You told me that yesterday.  I'm glad I'm not dead, too."  The shirt-turned-washrag made another swipe along his face.  "I'm even more pleased that you're not dead.  You were supposed to be hanging in irons on Gallows Point by now."

"Yesterday?"

"It's nearly sunset," Will explained.  "You've been asleep since the tail end of last night.  Elizabeth and I were about ready to wake you up by force so that one of us could have the bed."

"Elizabeth's got the helm, then?"

"Yes.  Don't worry, I showed her how to hold us on course."

"Ah.  Good."  Jack closed his eyes again, taking a moment to simply enjoy the fact that he was stretched out horizontal someplace moderately comfortable, instead of laying on the deck in the _Endeavour's_ orlop or on the floor of a jail cell.  His head felt significantly better than it had last night, closer to a mild hangover than to the sort of sickening, pounding ache a man got when he was foolish enough to drink the poisonous stuff that McTaggert and Twigg brewed down in the lower decks.  Apparently, being clubbed over the head by Commodore Norrington's sword hilt produced a similar effect, without the added trouble of having to drink the eye-watering brew.  "I got us out of the harbour all right, then?"

"You don't remember?"  Will dropped the shirt and leaned forward to peer at him carefully.

"I remember everythin' perfectly," Jack protested, slightly irked at this slur on his faculties.  "Up until I took hold of the wheel, that is.  It all gets sort of hazy after that."

Will raised his eyebrows, looking mildly impressed.  "You steered her steady as a rock.  You mean you weren't, ah, all there," he made a vague gesture toward his head, "for that bit?"

Jack propped himself up on his elbows, so as to get a better view of Will, and  stifled a yawn.  "Didn't matter, did it?  I can pilot a ship through anythin', always could.  I'm the best pirate in the Caribbean, savvy?" 

Will looked tired, he noticed.  He was smiling, but the lantern light in the commandeered sloop's cramped little cabin picked out the circles under his eyes, and, with his shirt sleeves pushed up, Jack could see the reddened skin of a burn on his right forearm.  He was momentarily distracted from the need to assert his credentials.

"Discovered the downside of bein' a gunner, have you, love?"  He waved a hand at the injury.

"What?"  Will glanced down at his arm, as if slightly surprised to see the length of burned skin.  "Oh, that.  I brushed my arm against a cannon.  I'd forgotten all about it."  He shrugged.  "I've had worse.  I work with hot metal for a living, remember?"  His eyes shifted back to Jack.  "Are you all right?"

Jack considered the question for a moment.  "Gettin' there," he finally answered.  It was true.  The long stretch of sleep had taken a lot of the headache away, and the dizziness seemed pretty much gone, though he wouldn't know for sure until he stood up.  He'd seen men take hard knocks to the head before, had a couple himself, too, though never one this bad before.  If a man didn't die within the first day or so, or wake up with his wits knocked out, everything usually went away on its own.  "A drink or two would help things along considerably."

This time, Will's smile was an odd cross between apologetic and amused.  "Elizabeth didn't bring any.  She thinks rum is-"

"A vile drink," Jack finished.  "I know.  I'm goin' to have to talk to her about that," he muttered.

"You can come on deck and do it, if you're really all right," Will offered.  "Someone needs to relieve her at the wheel anyway."

Jack sat up all the way and stretched his arms above his head, though he couldn't stretch them very far for fear of hitting the low beams overhead.  He rotated his shoulders, feeling one of the joints crack and pop.  Shackles were not kind to a man's arms and back.  At least he hadn't had the things on long enough for his wrists to get all banged up, he consoled himself.  "Be a good lad an' give me a hand up, will you, mate?"  He extended one hand towards Will, and the other man gripped him by the wrist and pulled him to his feet.  It was the same grip Will had had on him in the dream, some small part of his mind noted absently.  Too bad the piles of gold and ropes of black pearls weren't around to go with it.

Once on his feet—his bare feet, as his boots seemed to have been removed along with his shirt—Jack swayed for a moment, leaning against Will's shoulder as a snowstorm of grey momentarily blocked out his vision.  Will, who still had him by the wrist, pulled Jack's arm over his shoulders held him upright as if they were shipmates making their way back from a night in Tortuga.

"Are you sure you're all right?" he asked.

"M'fine."  Jack waved his free hand dismissively, and shook the brief surge of light-headedness off.  "I haven't eaten in two days, you know," he added plaintively.  "Please tell me Elizabeth packed food."

"Jack," Will turned to look at him steadily, his face mere inches away from Jack's, "we're not stupid."

They stood there like that for a second, Jack leaning on Will, staring at each other, barely a breath apart.  It was an extremely tempting position, almost as tempting as Elizabeth's spectacular bodice of guard seduction from the previous night.  The reminder of Elizabeth, however, was enough to make the temptation manageable.

"You're heavy," Will pointed out, after a moment.

Jack gave him his most ingratiating grin.  "But you're such a comfy arm rest."

Will stared at him for another moment, and then his face took on that familiar determined frown.  "Oh, bugger this," he muttered, "I might as well try it and see what happens while you're still off balance enough for me to duck."  And then he bent his head forward slightly, closed the narrow gap between them, and kissed Jack.  On the lips.

It was not a very good kiss, certainly not the passionate locking of lips Jack had seen him engage in with Elizabeth.  'But really,' his mind babbled at him, 'who's keeping score?'  It was a first effort, after all, and Will learned quickly.

Jack stayed absolutely motionless for a moment, that little part of his mind that was experienced in the ways of hallucinations and fancies and curses and bloody skeletons that walked around and tried to kill you half convinced that he had to be imagining this.  Then again, if he were imagining it, he would not have been the only one minus a shirt.  So he opened his mouth and kissed back.  A man didn't kiss with just his lips, after all.  Surely, after being married for this long, Will knew that.  The moustache, he decided, was not as irritating as one might think.

Will pulled away, breaking off the contact, and Jack unconsciously leaned forward, resting even more of his weight on Will, until he could feel Will's linen shirt—and the warm muscle underneath it, pressed against his bare chest and side.  Why were they stopping?  This wasn't the part where you stopped.  Will had just begun getting the hang of it.

Will, he saw, with the part of his brain that wasn't busy clamouring 'Will.  Sex.  Now,' like a tribal chant, was smiling.  A different sort of smile from the ones he'd been wearing earlier; a satisfied one.  "That," he said slowly, voice slightly hoarse, "worked better than I thought it would."

And then, Will dragged him on deck—barefoot, shirtless, minus scarf, kohl, and just about everything else except his breeches and tattoos, and still aching from that broken-off kiss—to confront Elizabeth.

She was standing behind the wheel, wearing the same British uniform she'd had on back last summer at the Isla del Muerte.  The spectacular corset and its accompanying view were sadly gone.  In fact, knowing Elizabeth, the corset was probably well on its way to Davy Jones' locker.

"You're awake," she greeted them.  "Good.  Someone come and grab this monstrously heavy wheel from me before my arms fall off."

Will, whose eyes had taken on that special, worshipful look they always seemed to hold when looking at Elizabeth, blushed.  This time without any careful prompting on Jack's part.  Elizabeth turned her gaze from the horizon then and really looked at them, a long, measuring sort of look.

"Oh."  She smiled, eyebrows going up, "you've gotten in ahead of me, haven't you."  And then she just looked for a while, while Jack stared back at her and wondered what the devil she was talking about.

"Enjoying the view, Lizzie?" Will asked.

She grinned mischievously.  "I don't know.  Perhaps you should take your shirt off too, to let me compare."

That was when Jack belatedly realised that they were discussing him, because oh, yes, half naked and shirtless here.  The impulse to show off fought briefly with the impulse to demand exactly what had happened to everyone else on this sloop while he'd been asleep, and won.  "See anything you like, love?"

"The compass rose is very pretty," she said seriously, "but the bootprint on your ribs is a little disconcerting."

As was Elizabeth eyeing him like that, because he didn't think she was teasing this time.  It wasn't as if Jack minded, but Will was standing _right there_.  Next to him.  With an arm around his shoulders.  And they'd been kissing about a half a minute ago.  He had to ask.  "Not that I'm complainin' about all this sudden an' overdue appreciation, but I thought you two had a great and magical undyin' love of the sort legends are made of."

Will elbowed him in the ribs, carefully avoiding the bruised part.

Elizabeth made a little noise that wasn't quite a laugh.  "Ah, that's where it becomes complicated."  She then launched into a hurriedly spoken explanation that was impressively long-but-not-entirely-clarifying even by Jack's standards.  "You know, half of Port Royal thinks that you and I have eloped together after having a torrid affair by this point.  And the more people accused me of it, the more it started to sound like a good idea.  So I talked to Will, and he thinks it's a good idea, too.  So we both eloped, in a way, if you want us, that is.  But I gave the earrings back to my cousin-in-law.  I'm sorry."

"Oh.  Right.  Don't worry about it."  Then Jack finished piecing together the rest of her meaning, and he was suddenly very glad that he was still half-draped over Will, because otherwise it probably would have staggered him.  Yesterday, he had lost everything, and had been stuck in Port Royal's dank little jail waiting to die.  Today…

"Wait, you both want to have an affair with me?"

"It isn't going to work, is it?" Will said, ducking out from under Jack's arm.  "It's too, too strange."

Jack felt oddly bereft as Will stepped away from him toward Elizabeth.  "No, no," he said quickly, hold a hand up, palm out.  "It's just that nobody in the entire world is that lucky.  And you're already married to each other."

Elizabeth and Will exchanged glances.  "If you'd ever been married, you'd know that one of the most important parts of a marriage is sharing," Elizabeth said.  She let go of the wheel—which Will quickly grabbed hold of—and stepped out from behind it to take Jack's hand.  She did a double take when she saw the skull tattoo on his wrist, but didn't say anything about it.  "I like the person I turn into when you're around.  That's one reason why I had to get you out of there.  And Will hasn't really said as much, but I think he does too."  She smiled, an expression eerily identical to the one dream-Elizabeth had worn.  "And he already knows that I always fall in love with people who rescue me."

Jack looked at Elizabeth, and then over at Will, who was holding the wheel steady in a firm and competent-looking grip.  The sloop, he couldn't help noticing, was only a point or two off the course he had set her on last night, and she was carrying exactly the right amount of sail.  And when he and Will had come on deck, Elizabeth had been staring of into the sunset with a look in her eyes that far too few people shared or understood.  "Oh good," Jack announced, stepping over to stand between them.  He threw an arm apiece over their shoulders.  "We've got somethin' in common, then, savvy?"

Elizabeth's kiss was a little less uncertain than Will's, Jack noted, as he leaned over and bit gently at that lower lip that seemed designed solely for the purpose of being kissed, before Will started nibbling on his ear.  Then, he stopped thinking at all.

When somebody finally thought to pay attention to the helm again, they were considerably more than two points off course.

^_~

Thank you to all my reviewers!  

**Shellie Rae:** Thank You!  Here you go: more shiny pirate goodness.  The Jack/Will hug took much effort and re-writing in order not to sound like something out of a bad Victorian novel, so I'm glad you liked it.  As for the Elizabeth-ogling, I'd already vicariously ogled Jack and Will, so I figured it was her turn ^_~

**Concrete-angel: ** Thank you!  But if all of the pirates went free, what would I do for dramatic tension?  (not to mention that Norrington skipping is just wrong.  Wrong, wrong, wrong.  He strides, he stalks, he treads, he promenades, but the good Commodore doesn't skip).

**Calendar: ** Thank you!  Yes, it would be a threesome, if this little epilogue didn't clear that up ^_~.  Elizabeth is one lucky woman.  

**Rissa of the Saiya-Jin: **Thank you!  I'm glad you enjoyed it, doom-laden cliff-hangers and all.

**Leap-of-fate: ** Thank you!  I'm glad you liked the descriptions and the plot.  I had the whole thing mostly plotted-out before I started writing, but some of the little bits (like Lizzie's last confrontation with Mary Rose) snuck up on me.  

**Phyllis: ** Thank you!  Wow, a really long review!  I assume you're a different Phyllis, and not the Phyllis that is my Great Aunt ^_~.  I had great fun writing this story, and part of it was because of the moral ambiguities I got to play with.  Plus, Norrington appeals to my long-standing soft spot for Navy guys, so I couldn't bastardise him into some evil villain.  After all, the man's just trying to do his job.  The threesome dynamic was a challenge—it was the first time I'd ever written a relationship with three people involved, and I had to juggle E/W, W/J, and E/J (not to mention Norrington's unrequited feelings for Elizabeth).  I'm thrilled that you think I did a good job ^_^.

^_~

This final (and it really is final this time, I swear) instalment of sappy almost-smut was brought to you by pizza, sleep deprivation, vast amounts of sugar, Elspethdixon's vaguely bisexual subconscious, the good people at Dell Computers, and the UCC computer lab.


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